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NOT  TO  BE  TAKEN  FROM  THE  ROOM 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

A  Corner  of  a  Japanese  Tea-House Frontispiece 

Palanquins  and  Carriage  .   .   .   Sleeping  Place  in  an  Aris- 
tocrat's Mansion 16 

Costumes  and  Head-dress  of  the  Heian  Epoch  ....  32 

Tokugawa  lyeyasu 48 

Japanese  Weapons  of  War ;   Sixteenth  Century      ...  64 

Samurai  of  Kamakura  Period 80 

Nagoya  Castle 96 

Mortuary  Bronze  Lanterns  in  the  Temple  Enclosure  at 

Shiba  Park,  Tokyo 112 

Weapons  of  War;  Twelfth  Century 128 

Playing  Blindman's  Buff  in  a  Side  Street  Leading  to  the 

Moat  in  Tokyo 144 

Temple  Bell  at  Kawasaki 160 

The  Graves  of  the  "Forty-seven  Ronin" 176 

Samurai  in  Armour 192 

Examples  of  Japanese  Flower  Arrangements     ....  208 

Examples  of  Japanese  Flower  Arrangements     ....  224 

House  for  the  Tea  Ceremony  in  the  Mito  Park,  Tokyo  256 


ii 


1C£9755 


JAPAN 


ITS  HISTORY  ARTS  AND 
LITERATURE 


Chapter  I 

HISrORT  OF  THE   MILITARY  EPOCH 


H 


AD  the  conditions  existing  in  the  Heian 
epoch  prevailed  throughout  the  whole 
country,  Japan  would  doubtless  have 
paid  the  penalty  never  escaped  by 
a  demoralised  nation.  But  in  proportion  as  the 
Court,  the  principal  officials,  and  the  noble- 
men in  the  capital,  abandoned  themselves  to 
pleasure  and  neglected  the  functions  of  govern- 
ment, the  provincial  families  acquired  strength. 
The  members  of  these  families  differed  essentially 
from  the  aristocrats  of  Kyoto.  They  had  no 
sympathy  with  the  enervating  luxury  of  city  life, 
and  if  they  chanced  to  visit  the  capital,  they 
could  not  fail  to  detect  the  effeminacy  and  in- 
competence of  the  Court  nobles.  These  latter, 
on  the  other  hand,  sought  to  win  the  friendship 
of  the  rustic  captains  in  order  to  gain  their  pro- 
tection against  the  priests,  who  defied  the  author- 


VOL.    II. 


JAPAN 

ity  of  the  central  government ;  against  the 
autochthons,  whom  the  provincial  soldiers  had 
been  specially  organised  in  the  eighth  century 
to  resist,  and  against  insurrections  which  occa- 
sionally occurred  among  sections  of  the  military 
men  themselves.  The  nation  was,  in  effect, 
divided  into  three  factions,  —  the  Court  nobles 
(Kuge),  the  military  families  (Buke),  and  the 
priests. 

The  military  men  had  at  the  outset  no  literary 
attainments :  they  knew  nothing  about  the  Chi- 
nese classics  or  the  art  of  turning  a  couplet.  Arms 
and  armour  were  their  sole  study,  and  the  only 
law  they  acknowledged  was  that  of  might.  The 
central  government,  altogether  powerless  to  con- 
trol them,  found  itself  steadily  weakened  not  only 
by  their  frank  indifference  to  its  mandates,  but 
also  by  the  shrinkage  of  revenue  that  gradually 
took  place  as  the  estates  of  the  local  captains 
ceased  to  pay  taxes  to  Kyoto.  Had  the  Fujiwara 
family  continued  to  produce  men  of  genius  and 
ambition,  the  capital  would  probably  have  strug- 
gled desperately  against  the  growth  of  provincial 
autonomy.  But  the  Fujiwara  had  fallen  victims 
to  their  own  greatness.  By  rendering  their  ten- 
ure of  power  independent  of  all  qualifications  to 
exercise  it,  they  had  ultimately  ceased  to  possess 
any  qualification  whatever.  The  close  of  the 
Heian  epoch  found  them  as  incapable  of  defend- 
ing their  usurped  privileges  as  had  been  the 
patriarchal  families  upon  whose  ruins  they  origi- 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

nally  climbed  to  supremacy.  And,  just  as  the 
decadence  of  the  patriarchal  families  and  the 
usurpation  of  the  Fujiwara  were  divided  by  a 
temporary  restoration  of  authority  to  the  Throne, 
so  the  decadence  of  the  Fujiwara  and  the  usurpa- 
tion of  the  military  clans  were  separated  by  a 
similar  rehabilitation  of  imperialism. 

Shirakawa  (1073-1086)  was  the  sovereign  who 
took  advantage  of  the  Fujiwara's  weakness  to 
resume  the  administration  of  State  affairs. 

Yet  Shirakawa  himself  inaugurated  a  new  form 
of  the  very  abuse  he  had  abolished  :  he  instituted  a 
system  of  camera  Emperors.  Though  he  actually 
occupied  the  Throne  for  fourteen  years  only,  he 
ruled  the  Empire  forty-three  years  after  his  abdica- 
tion, under  the  title  of  Howo  (pontiff) .  In  short, 
though  great  enough  to  conceive  and  consummate 
the  kingly  project  of  recovering  the  reality  of 
imperial  power  from  the  Fujiwara  nobles  who 
had  usurped  it,  he  afterwards,  by  reducing  the 
nominal  sovereign  to  the  status  of  a  mere  puppet 
vis-a-vis,  the  retired  monarch  deliberately  placed 
himself  in  the  position  that  the  Fujiwara  had 
occupied  vis-a-vis  the  Throne.  Neither  could 
he  escape  the  taint  of  his  time,  for  though  un- 
doubtedly a  man  of  high  ability  and  forceful 
character,  he  was  neither  economical  nor  up- 
right. He  built  several  magnificent  palaces 
standing  in  spacious  and  beautiful  parks ;  he 
devised  new  and  costly  kinds  of  entertainment ; 
he  lavished  vast  sums  on  the  construction  of  Bud- 


JAPAN 

dhist  temples  and  the  celebration  of  grand  religious 
services,  and  he  made  a  parade  of  his  belief  in 
Buddhism  by  forbidding  the  slaughter  of  birds, 
beasts,  fish  or  insects  in  any  part  of  the  Empire, 
and  never  allowing  either  fish  or  flesh  to  be 
served  at  the  Palace  feasts.  Yet  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  sell  official  posts,  thus  deliberately  per- 
petuating what  he  knew  to  be  one  of  the  worst 
evils  of  the  era,  hereditary  office-holding.  So 
far  was  this  abuse  carried  that  the  post  of  provin- 
cial governor  became  hereditary  in  thirty  cases 
during  Shirakawa's  tenure  of  power  ;  three  or  four 
persons  sometimes  held  the  same  office  simultane- 
ously by  purchase,  and  in  one  instance  a  boy  of 
ten  was  governor  of  a  province.  Such  incidents 
were  not  calculated  to  consolidate  the  power  of 
the  Throne,  and  the  imperial  authority  was  still 
further  discredited  by  the  spectacle  of  a  sover- 
eign nominally  ruling  but  in  reality  ruled  by 
an  ex-Emperor,  who,  while  professing  to  have 
abandoned  the  world  and  devoted  himself  to  a 
life  of  religion,  had  a  duly  organised  Court  with 
ministers  and  an  independent  military  force  of 
his  own,  and  issued  edicts  above  the  head  of  the 
reigning  Emperor.  Shirakawa  and  his  immedi- 
ate successors  who  followed  this  system  of  dual 
imperialism,  if  for  a  moment  they  enjoyed  the 
sweets  of  administrative  authority,  must  be  said 
to  have  invited  the  vicissitudes  that  afterwards 
befell  the  Throne.  In  truth,  to  whatever  trait 
of  national  character  the  fact  may  be  ascribable, 

4 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

history  seems  to  show  that  unlimited  monarchy 
is  an  impossible  polity  in  Japan. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  the 
military  power,  as  distinguished  from  that  of  the 
Court  and  the  priests,  had  fallen,  in  tolerably 
equal  proportions,  into  the  hands  of  two  families, 
the  Taira  and  the  Minamoto.1  Both  were  de- 
scended from  Emperors,  and  both  were  divided 
into  a  number  of  clans  established  in  different 
parts  of  the  Empire.  The  Taira  had  their  head- 
quarters in  Kyoto,  and  their  clans  were  para- 
mount in  the  provinces  near  the  capital.  The 
Minamoto's  sphere  of  influence  was  in  the  north 
and  east.  It  was  inevitable  that  these  two  should 
come  into  collision.  The  events  that  immedi- 
ately preluded  the  shock  may  be  briefly  dismissed 
by  saying  that  they  sprang  out  of  a  dispute  about 
the  succession  to  the  Throne.  The  Taira  tri- 
umphed, and  their  leader,  Kiyomori,  became 
the  autocrat  of  the  hour. 

Kiyomori  was  a  man  of  splendid  courage  and 
audacity,  but  originality  and  political  insight 
were  not  among  his  gifts.  Nothing  shrewder 
suggested  itself  to  him  than  to  follow  the  example 
of  the  Fujiwara  by  placing  minors  upon  the 
Throne.  He  caused  one  Emperor  to  retire  at 
the  age  of  five,  and  he  put  the  sceptre  into  the 
hands  of  another  at  the  age  of  eight.  He  filled 
all  the  high  offices  with  his  own  people  ;  made 
himself  Prime  Minister ;  his  eldest  son,  Minister 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  i. 


JAPAN 

of  the  Interior,  and  his  second  son,  Junior  Min- 
ister of  State.  He  organised  a  band  of  three 
hundred  lads  who  went  about  the  city  in  disguise 
to  report  any  one  that  spoke  ill  of  the  Taira,  and 
the  results  of  such  reports  were  so  terrible  that 
people  learned  to  say  "  not  to  be  a  Taira  is  to  be 
reckoned  a  beast."  He  brought  his  mailed  hand 
down  with  relentless  force  on  the  Buddhist  priests 
when  they  took  up  arms  against  the  Taira  at  the 
instigation  of  an  ex-Emperor,  and  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  seize  the  person  of  the  ex-Emperor 
himself  and  place  him  in  confinement.  He 
showed  equally  scant  consideration  for  the  Fuji- 
wara  nobles,  whom  the  prestige  of  long  associa- 
tion with  the  Throne  had  rendered  sacred  in  the 
eyes  of  the  nation  :  some  he  deprived  of  their 
posts ;  others  of  their  lands,  and  others  he  put  to 
death.  He  set  the  torch  to  temples  and  levied 
taxes  on  the  estates  of  Shinto  shrines.  Nothing 
deterred  him  ;  nothing  was  suffered  to  thwart  his 
plans,  and  the  Taira  chiefs  in  the  provinces  fol- 
lowed his  arbitrary  example. 

Such  a  government  was  not  likely  to  last  long. 
Twenty-two  years  measured  its  life.  Then  the 
Minamoto  rose  in  arms  and  triumphed  completely 
under  the  leadership  of  Yoritomo,  who  had  fought 
as  a  boy  of  thirteen  in  the  battle  that  established 
the  supremacy  of  his  father's  foes,  the  Taira.  The 
fall  of  the  latter  happened  in  the  last  quarter  of 
the  twelfth  century.  It  is  remarkable  as  the  com- 
plete establishment  of  military  feudalism  in  Japan. 
/  6 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

That  the  administrative  power  should  be 
wrested  from  the  Throne,  was  nothing  strange, 
being  in  truth  a  normal  incident  of  Japanese 
politics.  But  hitherto  the  administrators  had 
officiated  in  the  shadow  of  the  Throne.  It  is 
true  that  Kiyomori,  the  Taira  chief,  established 
his  head-quarters  at  the  modern  Hyogo,  and  thus, 
in  a  measure,  removed  the  seat  of  authority  from 
Kyoto.  He  did  not  attempt,  however,  to  organ- 
ise any  new  system,  being  content  to  fill  the  old 
offices  with  members  of  his  own  family.  Yori- 
tomo,  on  the  contrary,  inaugurated  an  entire 
change  of  polity.  He  established  a  military 
government  at  Kamakura,  hundreds  of  miles 
distant  from  Kyoto,  and  there  exercised  the 
administrative  functions,  leaving  to  the  Imperial 
Court  nothing  except  the  power  of  investing 
officials  and  conducting  ceremonials.  « 

Yoritomo  is  the  most  remarkable  figure  during 
the  first  eighteen  centuries  of  Japanese  history. 
Profound  craft  and  singular  luminosity  of  politi- 
cal judgment  were  the  prominent  features  of  his 
character.  A  cold,  calculating  man,  ready  to 
sacrifice  everything  to  ambition,  he  shocks  at  one 
time  by  inhumanity,  and  dazzles  at  another  by 
unerring  interpretations  of  the  object  lessons  of 
history.  Detecting  clearly  the  errors  that  his 
predecessors  had  committed,  he  spared  no  pains 
to  conciliate  the  Buddhist  priests  ;  won  the  nobil- 
ity by  restoring  to  them  their  offices  and  estates, 
and  propitiated  the  Court  by  leaving  its  organisa- 

7 


JAPAN 

tion  undisturbed  and  making  all  high  officials  its 
nominal  appointees.  After  he  had  crushed  his 
rivals,  the  Taira,  he  found  in  the  provinces  civil 
governors  (Kokuskt),  who  were  practically  irre- 
sponsible autocrats.  He  found  also  nobles  who 
held  hereditary  possession  of  wide  estates  and  had 
full  power  over  the  persons  and  properties  of  their 
tenants  as  well  as  over  the  minor  land-holders  in 
their  district.  To  administer  the  country's  affairs 
in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  these  governors  and 
manorial  nobles  must  be  removed.  He  there- 
fore petitioned  the  Court,  and  obtained  permis- 
sion to  appoint  in  each  province  a  Constable 
(Shugd),  or  military  governor,  and  a  chief  of 
lands  (Jitd),  both  responsible  for  preserving  order 
and  collecting  and  transmitting  the  taxes.  These 
officials  were  all  appointed  from  Kamakura,  which 
thus  became  the  real  centre  of  administrative 
power.  For  himself,  Yoritomo  obtained  the  title 
of  Lord  High  Constable  (So-tsui-Hosfu),  which  was 
afterwards  supplemented  by  that  of  Tai-i-Sbogun 
(barbarian-subduing  generalissimo).  He  was  not 
a  great  general.  In  military  ability  he  could  not 
compare  with  either  his  brother,  the  brilliant  and 
ill-fated  Yoshitsune,  or  his  cousin,  the  *'  morning- 
sun  "  captain  Yoshinaka.  Moreover,  if  his  legis- 
lative and  political  talents  command  profound 
admiration,  it  is  impossible  to  be  certain  how 
much  of  the  credit  belongs  to  him,  how  much 
to  his  able  adviser,  Oye-no-Hiromoto,  who  is 
said  to  have  suggested  all  the  reforms  and  drafted 


THE    MILITARY     EPOCH 

all  the  laws  that  emanated  from  the  Kamakura 
government.  Not  the  least  astute  of  Oye's  per- 
ceptions was  that  the  supreme  power  could  not 
long  be  held  by  a  family  residing  in  Kyoto  ;  first, 
because  the  Imperial  city  lay  far  from  the  military 
centres  whence  help  could  be  obtained  in  time 
of  need ;  secondly,  because  the  Court  nobles  as- 
sembled there  could  not  be  ignored  without  pro- 
voking hostile  intrigues,  or  recognised  without 
incurring  heavy  expenditure ;  and  thirdly,  because 
the  atmosphere  of  the  capital  was  fatal  tp  military 
robustness.  It  was  for  these  reasons  that  Kama- 
kura became  the  metropolis  of  military  feudalism. 
There  Yoritomo  had,  in  effect,  his  Minister  of 
the  Right  and  his  Minister  of  the  Left,  his  Min- 
ister of  War, .  his  Minister  of  Justice,  and  his 
Councillors ;  but  he  took  care  not  to  give  them 
titles  suggesting  any  usurpation  of  imperial  power, 
nor  to  abolish  any  of  the  time-honoured  posts  in 
Kyoto. 

These  changes  were  radical.  They  signified  a 
complete  shifting  of  the  centre  of  power.  Dur- 
ing eighteen  hundred  years  from  the  time  of  the 
invasion  of  Jimmu,  the  country  had  been  ruled 
from  the  south  ;  now  the  north  became  supreme. 
The  long  and  fierce  struggle  with  the  autochthons 
had  produced  the  Bando  soldiery,  and  these  not 
only  gave  the  country  its  new  rulers  but  also  con- 
stituted their  support. 

Yoritomo's  success  may  further  be  regarded  as 
the  triumph  of  military  democracy  over  imperial 

9 


JAPAN 

aristocracy.  Many  of  his  followers  were  de- 
scended from  men  who,  originally  serfs  of  Kyoto 
nobles,  had  been  sent  to  the  provinces  to  till  the 
soil  and  procure  sustenance  for  their  lords.  The 
rise  of  the  Kamakura  government  was  thus  a 
revolution  in  a  double  sense,  being  not  only  the 
substitution  of  a  military  democracy  for  an  im- 
perial aristocracy,  but  also  the  rehabilitation  of  a 
large  section  of  the  nation  who  had  once  been 
serfs. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  Fujiwarathemselveswere 
directly  responsible  for  the  development  of  pro- 
vincial autonomy.  Their  attitude  towards  every- 
thing outside  the  capital  had  been  one  of  studied 
inactivity.  When  a  military  disturbance  arose 
in  one  district  and  was  quelled  by  the  efforts  of 
another,  the  ministers  in  Kyoto  refused  to  recog- 
nise the  services  of  the  latter,  on  the  plea  that 
local  interests  alone  had  been  concerned.  Even 
when  foreign  invaders  (the  Tartars)  were  repulsed, 
the  Fujiwara  Regent,  not  having  himself  raised  a 
finger  in  defence  of  the  country,  nevertheless  hes- 
itated to  reward  the  men  that  had  averted  the 
peril.  Such  a  policy,  if  continued,  must  have 
annihilated  all  national  spirit.  Happily  it  worked 
its  own  overthrow  by  teaching  the  provincials 
their  independence. 

Yoritomo  made  the  mistake  of  estimating  his 
own  personality  more  highly  than  the  interests 
of  the  great  clan  he  represented.  He  killed  all 
the  Minamoto  leaders  that  seemed  capable  of  dis- 

-  10 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

puting  his  sway,  and  he  thus  left  the  clan  fatally 
weakened  at  the  time  of  his  death.  Kamakura 
was  then  divided  between  two  parties,  the  literary 
and  the  military.  With  the  former  were  associ- 
ated Masa,  Yoritomo's  widow,  and  her  family, 
the  Hojo.  A  struggle  ensued.  Masa  intrigued 
to  preserve  the  succession  for  her  own  son  in 
preference  to  her  step-son,  who  had  the  right  of 
primogeniture.  Both  of  the  aspirants  were  ulti- 
mately done  to  death,  and  the  final  result  was  that 
a  baby  nephew  of  Yoritomo  was  brought  from 
Kyoto  to  fill  the  office  of  SKogun,  the  head  of  the 
Hojo  family  becoming  Vicegerent  (Shikken]. 

Thus,  within  a  few  years  after  Yoritomo's 
death,  there  was  instituted  at  Kamakura  a  system 
of  government  precisely  analogous  to  that  which 
had  existed  for  centuries  under  the  Fujiwara  in 
Kyoto.  A  child,  who  on  State  occasions  was 
carried  to  the  council  chamber  in  the  lady  Masa's 
arms,  served  as  the  nominal  repository  of  supreme 
power,  the  functions  of  administration  being 
really  performed  by  the  representatives  of  a  para- 
mount family. 

These  were  a  great  pair,  the  lady  Masa  and 
her  brother,  Hojo  Yoshitoki,  the  Vicegerent. 
By  inflexibly  just  judgments,  by  a  policy  of  uni- 
form impartiality,  by  frugal  lives,  by  a  wise  system 
of  taxes  imposed  chiefly  on  luxuries,  and  by  the 
stern  repression  of  bribery,  they  won  a  high  place 
in  the  esteem  and  love  of  the  people.  There  is 
nothing  to  suggest  that  they  would  have  volun- 

ii 


JAPAN 

tarily  sought  to  encroach  further  on  the  preroga- 
tives of  the  Court  in  Kyoto. 

But  the  Court  itself  provoked  their  enmity  by 
an  ill-judged  attempt  to  break  the  power  of  the 
Shogunate.  It  issued  a  call  to  arms  which  was 
responded  to  by  some  thousands  of  cenobites  and 
as  many  soldiers  of  Taira  extraction.  Kamakura, 
however,  sent  out  an  army  which  annihilated  the 
Imperial  partisans,  and  from  that  time  all  the 
great  offices  in  Kyoto  were  occupied  by  nominees 
of  the  Hojo,  even  the  succession  to  the  Throne 
requiring  their  mandate. 

It  fared  with  the  Hojo  as  it  had  fared  with  all 
the  great  families  that  preceded  them :  their  own 
misrule  ultimately  wrought  their  ruin.  Their 
first  eight  representatives  were  talented  and  up- 
right administrators.  They  took  justice,  sim- 
plicity, and  truth  for  guiding  principles ;  they 
despised  luxury  and  pomp ;  they  never  aspired 
to  a  higher  official  rank  than  the  fourth ;  they 
were  content  with  two  provinces  for  estates ; 
they  did  not  seek  the  office  of  SKogun  for  them- 
selves, but  always  allowed  it  to  be  held  by  a 
member  of  the  Imperial  family,  and  they  sternly 
repelled  the  effeminate,  depraved  customs  of 
Kyoto.  But  in  the  days  of  the  ninth  represen- 
tative, Takatoki,  a  new  atmosphere  permeated 
Kamakura.  Instead  of  visiting  the  archery- 
ground,  the  fencing-school,  and  the  manage,  men 
began  to  waste  day  and  night  in  the  company  of 
dancing-girls,  professional  musicians,  and  jesters. 

12 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

The  plain,  simple  diet  of  former  days  was  ex- 
changed for  Chinese  dishes.  Takatoki  himself 
affected  the  pomp  and  extravagance  of  a  sover- 
eign. He  kept  thirty-seven  concubines,  main- 
tained a  band  of  two  thousand  actors,  and  had  a 
pack  of  five  thousand  fighting  dogs.1  Moreover, 
the  prestige  of  the  northern  soldiers  suffered  a 
severe  shock. 

A  wave  of  Mongol  invasion,  striking  the  shores 
of  Kiushiu,  involved  battles  on  sea  and  on  shore, 
and  in  the  marine  contests  the  southern  soldiers 
showed  themselves  much  better  fighters  than  the 
northern.  Now  it  was  on  the  reputation  of  the 
northern  soldiers,  the  Bando  Bushi,  that  Kama- 
kura's  military  prestige  rested,  and  with  the  de- 
cline of  that  prestige  the  supremacy  of  the  feudal 
capital  began  to  be  questioned.  Yet  another 
factor  inimical  to  the  interests  of  the  Hojo  was 
a  recrudescence  of  the  military  power  of  the 
monks.  By  Court  and  people  alike  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Mongol  armada  was  attributed,  not 
to  the  bravery  and  skill  of  the  troops,  but  to  the 
intervention  of  heaven,  and  instead  of  rewarding 
the  generals  and  soldiers  that  had  fought  so 
stoutly,  the  Court  lavished  vast  sums  on  priests 
that  had  prayed  and  on  temples  where  portents 
had  been  observed.  Oppressed  by  the  heavy 
taxes  imposed  for  these  purposes,  the  people  lost 
confidence  in  the  Hojo,  who  had  hitherto  pro- 
tected them  against  such  abuses,  and  the  monks, 

1  See  Appendix,  note  2. 

13 


JAPAN 

in  obedience  to  their  Imperial  benefactor,  were 
ready  to  take  up  their  halberds  once  more  against 
Kamakura. 

The  sceptre  was  held  at  that  moment  by  Go- 
daigo  (1319—1339).  An  accomplished  scholar, 
he  had  acquired  intimate  knowledge  of  politics 
during  many  years  of  life  as  Prince  Imperial,  and 
it  is  beyond  question  that,  long  before  his  acces- 
sion, he  had  conceived  plans  for  restoring  the 
reality  of  administrative  power  to  the  Throne. 
A  woman,  however,  —  that  constant  factor  of 
disturbance  in  mediaeval  Japan  —  was  the  proxi- 
mate cause  of  his  rupture  with  Kamakura.  His 
concubine,  Renshi,  bore  a  son  for  whom  he 
sought  to  obtain  nomination  as  Prince  Imperial, 
in  defiance  of  an  arrangement  made  by  the  Hojo, 
some  years  previously,  according  to  which  the 
succession  was  secured  alternately  to  the  senior 
and  junior  branches  of  the  Imperial  family. 
The  Kamakura  government  refused  to  entertain 
Go-daigo's  project,  and  from  that  hour  Renshi 
never  ceased  to  urge  upon  her  sovereign  and 
lover  the  necessity  of  overthrowing  the  Hojo. 

As  for  the  entourage  of  the  Throne  at  the  time, 
it  was  a  counterpart  of  former  eras.  The  Fuji- 
wara,  indeed,  wielded  nothing  of  their  ancient 
influence.  They  had  been  divided  by  the  Hojo 
into  five  branches,  each  endowed  with  an  equal 
right  to  the  office  of  Regent,  and  their  strength 
was  thus  entirely  dissipated  in  struggling  among 
themselves  for  the  possession  of  the  prize.  But 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

what  the  Fujiwara  had  done  in  their  days  of 
greatness,  what  the  Taira  had  done  during  their 
brief  tenure  of  power,  the  Saionji  were  now  doing, 
namely,  aspiring  to  furnish  Prime  Ministers  and 
Empresses  solely  from  their  own  family.  They 
had  already  given  five  consorts  to  five  Emperors 
in  succession,  and  zealous  rivals  were  watching 
keenly  to  attack  this  clan  which  threatened  to 
usurp  the  place  long  held  by  the  most  illustrious 
family  in  the  land. 

An  incident  paltry  in  itself  disturbed  this 
exceedingly  tender  equilibrium.  Two  provin- 
cial chiefs  became  involved  in  a  dispute  about 
a  boundary.  Each  bribed  the  Kamakura  Vice- 
gerent to  decide  in  his  favour,  and  each  failing  to 
obtain  a  decision,  they  finally  appealed  to  arms. 
Soon  the  country  was  in  an  uproar.  A  number 
of  nobles  and  fraternities  of  monks  formed  an 
alliance  in  Kyoto  for  the  overthrow  of  the  Hojo. 
The  conspirators  adopted  a  peculiar  device  to 
disarm  suspicion  :  they  abandoned  themselves  to 
debauchery  of  the  most  flagrant  nature.  But  one 
of  them  took  his  wife  into  his  confidence,  and 
she  carried  the  news  to  her  father,  an  officer  in 
the  Hojo  garrison  of  Kyoto.  The  conspiracy  was 
crushed  immediately.  The  Emperor,  however, 
managed  adroitly  to  disavow  his  own  connection 
with  it.  He  thus  saved  himself,  but  forfeited 
the  sympathy  of  many  of  the  nobles  and  retained 
the  allegiance  of  the  priests  only.  At  this  junc- 
ture the  heir  apparent  of  the  junior  Imperial  line 

'5 


JAPAN 

died,  and  the  Emperor  sought  once  more  to 
obtain  the  succession  for  his  favourite  mistress's 
son.  But  the  Hqjo  ruled  that  the  spirit  of  the 
law  of  alternate  succession  would  be  violated 
unless  the  representative  of  each  line  actually 
occupied  the  Throne  in  turn.  A  new  conspiracy 
resulted  from  this  failure,  and  a  strong  force  was 
sent  from  Kamakura  to  destroy  the  plotters  and 
dethrone  the  Emperor.  Then  commenced  the 
most  sanguinary  era  in  Japanese  history.  The 
Emperor,  disguised  as  a  woman,  eluded  his 
enemies  for  a  time,  but  was  soon  captured  and 
sent  into  exile  in  the  little  island  of  Oki.  Never- 
theless, the  Imperial  cause  still  found  many  sup- 
porters, and  although  the  Hojo  were  able  to  put 
a  large  and  splendidly  equipped  force  into  the 
field,  it  lacked  a  leader.  One  man  only  among 
the  Hojo  generals  possessed  all  the  necessary 
qualities,  Takauji,  the  representative  of  the  Ashi- 
kaga  clan.  But  he  had  inherited  a  sacred  legacy, 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation  in 
his  family,  the  task  of  avenging  his  ancestor, 
Yoritomo's  son,1  and  restoring  the  rule  of  the 
Minamoto.  When,  therefore,  he  found  him- 
self at  the  head  of  a  large  section  of  the  Hojo's 
forces,  he  immediately  opened  communications 
with  the  Emperor,  received  an  Imperial  mandate 
to  destroy  the  enemies  of  the  Throne,  and 
stormed  the  Hojo  stronghold  in  Kyoto,  while 
Nitta  Yoshisada,  another  of  the  most  renowned 

1  See  Appendix,  Note  3. 

16 


.V10I8>1AM    8' 


PALANQUINS   AND   CARRIAGE. 

SLEEPING    PLACE    IN    AN    ARISTOCRAT'S    MANSION. 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

heroes  of  Japanese  history,  marched  'an  army 
against  Kamakura.  The  last  of  the  Hojo  Vice- 
gerents committed  suicide  with  many  of  his 
captains :  Kamakura  fell,  and  the  day  of  gen- 
uine Imperial  sway  seemed  to  have  at  length 
dawned. 

But  the  Emperor  Godaigo,  however  brave  in 
adversity,  was  not  wise  in  prosperity.  At  the 
very  moment  of  his  escape  from  the  control  of 
the  Hojo,  he  ignored  the  lessons  of  history,  and 
laid  the  foundation  of  a  new  usurpation  by  con- 
ferring immense  rewards  and  high  office  on 
Ashikaga  Takauji.  At  the  same  time  he  estranged 
the  other  captains  by  neglecting  their  claims. 
Prince  Moriyoshi,  whose  succession  to  the 
Throne  had  been  the  proximate  cause  of  all  these 
troubles,  constituted  himself  the  representative  of 
the  discontented  southern  soldiers,  for  he,  like 
them,  had  hoped  to  see  the  administrative  power 
restored  to  the  sovereign,  not  handed  over  to  the 
Ashikaga.  The  Court  nobles,  on  the  other  hand, 
imagining  that  the  hour  had  come  to  shake  off 
military  supremacy,  treated  the  soldier  class  with 
contempt  and  supported  the  Emperor's  resolve 
not  to  reward  them.  Godaigo  removed  the 
military  men  from  the  provincial  posts  ;  replaced 
them  by  representatives  of  the  Kyoto  aristocracy  ; 
bestowed  estates  on  a  multitude  of  courtiers, 
from  princes  to  actors  and  dancing-girls ;  levied 
a  tax  of  five  per  cent  on  the  property  of  the 
provincial  officials,  and  began  to  issue  paper 

VOL.    II. 2  1*7 


JAPAN 

money.  Very  soon,  however,  discovering  the 
danger  to  which  he  exposed  himself  by  exalting 
Takauji,  he  tried  to  avert  it  by  encouraging  the 
latter's  rivals.  Thus  the  situation  became  again 
pregnant  with  elements  of  disquiet :  the  Court 
nobles  against  the  military  ;  the  southern  generals, 
represented  by  the  renowned  Kusunoki  Masashige 
and  Nitta  Yoshisada,  against  the  northern,  repre- 
sented by  Ashikaga  Takauji ;  the  partisans  of  the 
Hojo  watching  for  an  opportunity  to  restore  the 
fallen  fortunes  of  the  clan,  and  Prince  Morinaga, 
though  distrusted  by  the  sovereign  holding 
command  of  the  Imperial  forces.  The  Hojo 
commenced  the  campaign.  Saionji  Kunimune, 
whose  family  no  longer  supplied  Imperial  con- 
sorts and  Prime  Ministers,  as  it  had  done  in  the 
Hojo  days,  planned  to  poison  the  Emperor  at 
a  banquet.  The  plot  was  discovered,  and  in  the 
confusion  that  ensued,  Prince  Morinaga  thought 
that  he  saw  an  opportunity  to  overthrow  the 
Ashikaga.  But  the  Emperor  willingly  denounced 
his  son,  and  handed  him  over  to  Takauji,  who 
imprisoned  him  in  Kamakura,  where  he  perished 
miserably.  Shortly  afterwards,  the  Hojo  parti- 
sans attacked  Kamakura  and  recovered  possession 
of  it.  Takauji  was  in  Kyoto  at  the  time.  Dis- 
regarding the  Emperor's  reluctance  to  commission 
him,  he  moved  against  the  Hojo  and  re-captured 
Kamakura.  Undoubtedly  in  taking  that  step  he 
had  resolved  to  free  himself  from  Court  control. 
Thus,  when  the  Emperor  summoned  him  to 

18 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

return  to   Kyoto,   he   paid    no   attention   to   the 
mandate. 

Japanese  historians  have  been  harsh  in  their 
judgment  of  Takauji.  His  attitude  towards  the 
Throne  has  been  severely  censured.  But  it  does 
not  appear  that  he  contemplated  more  than 
others  had  previously  compassed,  namely,  the 
establishment  of  a  military  dictatorship.  The 
difference  between  his  case  and  Yoritomo's  was 
that  the  latter  received  Imperial  recognition,  the 
former  dispensed  with  it.  For  the  rest,  each  was 
a  soldier  before  everything,  and  neither  aimed  at 
the  Throne.  Takauji  is  the  central  figure  of  the 
greatest  political  disturbance  Japan  ever  knew, 
but  the  feature  that  chiefly  differentiates  him 
from  the  ambitious  nobles  who  in  earlier  eras 
aspired  to  precisely  the  same  authority,  is  that 
whereas  they  climbed  to  power  by  espousing  the 
sovereign's  cause,  in  appearance  at  all  events,  he 
established  his  sway  independently  of  Imperial 
recognition.  That,  however,  is  a  distinction 
rather  than  a  difference.  It  is  true  that  the  Fuji- 
wara  when  they  overthrew  the  usurping  Soga, 
the  Taira  when  they  displaced  the  despotic  Fuji- 
wara,  and  the  Minamoto  when  they  broke  the 
strength  of  the  arbitrary  Taira,  all  seemed  to  come 
to  the  rescue  of  the  Throne.  But  each  in  turn 
took  as  little  subsequent  account  of  the  Throne's 
authority  as  though  they  had  ignored  it  from  the 
outset,  and  the  Hojo,  whom  Takauji  now  crushed, 
had  established  themselves  at  Kamakura  in  open 

19 


JAPAN 

despite  of  the  Court's  denunciation.  It  cannot 
be  said,  therefore,  that  Takauji  violated  precedent 
when  he  refused  to  come  to  Kyoto  for  a  com- 
mission and  organised  a  military  government  at 
Kamakura  on  his  own  authority. 

The  empire  immediately  became  divided  into 
two  camps.  The  adherents  of  the  Court  flocked 
to  Kyoto ;  those  of  the  Ashikaga  to  Kamakura. 
The  Emperor  appointed  Nitta  Yoshisada  to  com- 
mand the  Imperial  army.  It  moved  in  two 
bodies  towards  Kamakura,  — one  by  the  sea-coast, 
the  other  by  the  inland  route.  A  third  force 
marched  to  the  attack  of  the  place  from  the 
north.  In  this  supreme  struggle  the  two  fore- 
most figures  are  those  of  Yoshisada  and  Takauji. 
They  were  not  well  matched.  Takauji  was  in  all 
respects  one  of  the  greatest  men  Japan  had  ever 
produced.  Yoshisada,  though  a  splendid  soldier 
so  far  as  bravery  and  daring  were  concerned, 
stood  on  a  much  lower  plane  than  Takauji  as  a 
strategist  and  politician.  Besides,  public  opinion 
inclined  to  the  Ashikaga  leader.  The  partiality 
of  the  Court  had  produced  an  evil  impression 
on  the  nation.  Men  remembered  with  regret 
the  wise  and  beneficent  rule  of  the  Hojo's  best 
days,  and  hoped  that  Takauji  might  prove  the 
founder  of  a  similar  race  of  good  governors. 
Takauji's  reputation  already  justified  these  hopes. 
He  had  shown  himself  not  only  sagacious  and 
daring,  but  also  free  from  the  narrow  jealousies 
and  cold  reserve  that  disfigured  Yoritomo's  char- 
so 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

acter.  Open-handed  and  frank,  he  won  love 
everywhere  without  forfeiting  respect.  The 
smallest  merit  did  not  escape  his  observation,  or 
go  unrewarded.  Ambition,  however,  overmas- 
tered him  ;  want  of  organising  capacity  impaired 
his  success,  and  when  he  found  himself  con- 
fronted by  perils  of  overwhelming  magnitude,  he 
stooped  to  crimes  correspondingly  great. 

At  first  victory  rested  with  Yoshisada.  But 
when  Takauji  himself  took  the  field,  the  as- 
pect of  things  changed  at  once.  He  not  only 
shattered  Yoshisada,  but  pushed  on  and  took 
Kyoto.  Unable  to  hold  the  city,  however,  he 
was  soon  compelled  to  retire  southward,  and  the 
Court,  believing  his  power  completely  broken, 
abandoned  all  further  precautions. 

Kusunoki  Masashige  alone  remained  vigilant. 
A  noble  type  of  soldierly  loyalty,  this  man,  whose 
memory  remains  as  fresh  in  the  hearts  of  his 
countrymen  to-day  as  it  was  five  centuries  ago, 
had  never  wavered  in  his  allegiance  to  the 
Imperial  cause,  and  by  sheer  force  of  stubborn 
courage  had  survived  situations  that  appeared 
overwhelming.  Knowing  Takauji  too  well  to 
credit  the  permanence  of  his  defeat,  he  vainly 
endeavoured  to  procure  from  the  Emperor  par- 
don for  the  Ashikaga  leader.  Very  soon  Takauji 
justified  these  apprehensions.  He  collected  a 
great  force,  naval  and  military,  and  established 
his  base  at  Hyogo.  The  Emperor  ordered  Ma- 
sashige and  Yoshisada  to  march  against  him. 

21 


JAPAN 

But  Masashige,  appreciating  the  helplessness  of  a 
direct  conflict,  would  have  resorted  to  stratagem : 
he  proposed  to  strike  at  Takauji's  line  of  com- 
munications. This  wise  counsel  being  derided 
as  cowardice  by  the  Court  nobles,  who  knew 
nothing  of  warfare,  Masashige  gathered  seven 
hundred  of  his  stanchest  followers  and  struck 
full  at  the  huge  phalanx  of  the  enemy.  Six 
hundred  and  fifty  of  the  brave  band  fell  fighting, 
and  Masashige  with  the  remaining  fifty  com- 
mitted suicide  on  the  banks  of  the  Minato  River. 
Thereafter  Yoshisada's  army  was  easily  routed, 
and  Takauji  re-entered  Kyoto. 

The  Emperor  now  fled  to  a  monastery  and 
Takauji  nominated  his  successor.  There  was  no 
arbitrary  exercise  of  king-making  power :  Takauji 
merely  set  up  the  junior  Imperial  line  in  lieu  of 
the  senior.  Democratic  as  was  the  spirit  of  the 
northern  captains,  they  did  not  venture  to  openly 
flout  the  national  traditions  of  the  sovereign's 
divine  right.  In  the  desultory  struggle  that  en- 
sued there  is  only  one  phase  worthy  of  special 
attention.  It  is  the  conduct  of  the  Emperor 
Godaigo.  Invited  by  Takauji  to  return  to  Kyoto 
on  the  slender  plea  that  the  Ashikaga  had  fought 
against  the  Imperial  followers,  not  against  the 
Imperial  person,  Godaigo  left  his  son  and  his 
faithful  general,  Nitta  Yoshisada,  disregarded  his 
promises  to  them,  and  abandoned  himself  to  a 
life  of  safety  under  the  shadow  of  the  Ashikaga. 
Yoshisada,  with  a  little  band  of  seven  hundred 

22 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

followers,  fled  northward,  taking  with  him  the 
young  prince.  Attacked  among  the  snows  of 
Echizen  by  a  greatly  superior  force,  he  barely 
escaped  to  Kanasaki  castle,  whither  Takauji 
sent  a  powerful  army  to  attack  him  by  land  and 
by  sea.  The  nation  looked  to  see  Yoshisada 
surrender  at  discretion.  But  such  a  thought 
does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  him.  He 
resisted  all  assaults  successfully  until  a  chance 
arrow  killed  him.  His  end  was  less  glorious 
though  not  less  honourable  than  that  of  his  com- 
rade and  peer,  the  grandly  loyal  soldier,  Kusunoki 
Masashige. 

Meanwhile  in  Kyoto  the  Emperor's  attempt 
to  recover  a  semblance  of  power  by  submission 
to  the  Ashikaga,  failed.  Takauji  trusted  neither 
him  nor  his  followers,  but  treated  them  as  pris- 
oners, until  the  Emperor,  taking  heart  from  some 
symptoms  of  provincial  support,  fled  to  the  mon- 
astery of  Yoshino.  This  took  place  in  1337,  and 
from  that  time,  during  a  space  of  fifty-five  years, 
two  sovereigns  reigned  simultaneously,  Yoshino 
being  called  the  Court  of  the  Southern  Dynasty, 
Kyoto  that  of  the  Northern.  Those  fifty-five 
years  were  an  epoch  of  almost  incessant  fighting. 
The  Emperor  Godaigo  died  at  Yoshino  with 
his  sword  grasped  in  his  hand.  His  people 
class  him  with  Tenchi  and  Kwammu  as  one  of 
Japan's  greatest  sovereigns.  Yet  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  same  credit  would  be  accorded  to 
him  had  he  occupied  a  less  exalted  station. 

23 


JAPAN 

-    */ 

Solid  success  could  never  have  been  achieved  by 
a  leader  in  whose  nature  the  sensuous  element 
preponderated  so  largely.  Circumstances,  too, 
were  hopelessly  against  him.  Fate  condemned 
him  to  be  crushed  between  the  two  great  forces 
which  convulsed  his  kingdom.  That  he  chose 
the  weaker  side  was  perhaps  an  error  of  judg- 
ment, but  to  have  chosen  the  stronger  would  have 
involved  the  sacrifice  of  his  imperial  aspirations. 

The  Ashikaga  differed  from  the  Hojo  chiefly 
in  this,  that  whereas  the  Hojo  eschewed  all  the 
excesses  and  extravagances  which  had  weakened 
their  predecessors,  the  Ashikaga  practised  them. 
The  Hojo  did  not  seek  high  rank  or  great  estates, 
but  chose  rather  to  use  titles  and  riches  as  means 
of  rewarding  proved  friends  or  placating  poten- 
tial foes.  The  Ashikaga,  on  the  contrary,  grasped 
and  enjoyed  all  the  rewards  of  victory.  Their 
only  bid  for  popularity  was  to  reduce  the  taxes 
levied  on  the  provincial  officials  from  five  per 
cent  of  their  incomes  to  two  per  cent.  Takauji 
himself  became  Stiogun,  caused  members  of  his 
family  and  prominent  men  among  his  followers 
to  be  nominated  to  various  high  offices,  and  en- 
riched himself  and  them  with  estates  or  sinecures 
wherever  such  a  course  was  possible.  Probably 
his  greatest  error  was  that  he  restored  the  seat  of 
government  to  Kyoto.  The  beauty  and  grace  of 
the  noble  ladies  of  the  capital  completely  intoxi- 
cated the  northern  warriors,  and  alliance  after 
alliance  was  formed  between  these  rough  soldiers 

24 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

and  the  families  of  the  effeminate  aristocrats 
whom  they  had  hitherto  despised.  Those  that 
could  not  by  fair  means  obtain  wives  among  these 
dainty  dames,  often  had  recourse  to  foul  expedi- 
ents. A  passion  for  gambling  was  soon  added  to 
the  excitements  of  the  capital.  Swords  and 
armour  were  staked  on  a  throw  of  the  dice,  and 
men  learned  to  dread  war,  since  it  called  them 
away  from  the  delights  of  the  Imperial  city. 
Even  the  principle  of  loyalty,  the  first  article  of 
the  bushfs  creed,  began  to  be  weakened,  for  the 
turmoil  of  the  time  brought  such  sharp  and 
incalculable  changes  of  fortune  that  no  certain 
advantage  seemed  to  accrue  from  adhering  to  one 
leader,  however  secure  his  position  might  appear. 
It  became  every  man's  first  business  to  look  out 
for  himself.  There  is  no  blacker  period  of 
Japan's  history.  Fealty  and  honesty  disappeared 
from  the  ethics  of  the  time.  Even  before  Takauji 
died,  the  powers  that  he  had  hoped  to  bequeath 
to  his  descendants  had  been  largely  usurped  by 
his  lieutenants.  Treachery  and  intrigue  were  in 
the  air.  Men  that  espoused  the  cause  of  the 
Northern  Dynasty  yesterday  were  found  fighting 
for  the  Southern  to-day.  The  great  barons  in 
the  provinces  paid  little  heed  to  the  Ashikaga 
rule.  Each  fought  for  his  own  hand.  If  an 
official  of  high  aims  attempted  to  stem  the  cur- 
rent of  corruption  and  abuses,  it  closed  over  his 
head,  for  integrity  immediately  provoked  slander. 
To  Yoshimitsu,  third  of  the  Ashikaga  Sboguns, 


JAPAN 

belongs  the  credit  of  reconciling  the  two  Courts 
and  putting  an  end  to  the  dual  monarchy.  This 
achievement  won  for  him  in  history  a  greater 
name  than  he  deserved,  for  if  he  possessed  some 
of  the  virtues  of  his  class,  he  was  also  a  slave  to 
the  vices  of  his  era. 

With  the  unification  of  the  monarchy  (1392) 
commenced  what  is  called  the  "  Muromachi 
Epoch,'*  because  Yoshimitsu  established  his  head- 
quarters at  Muromachi,  a  district  in  Kyoto. 
Similarly,  as  has  been  seen,  the  interval  be- 
tween the  eighth  century  and  the  close  of  the 
fourteenth  was  divided  into  the  Nara  Epoch, 
the  Heian  Epoch,  and  the  Kamakura  Epoch, 
each  of  those  places  having  been,  in  succession,  the 
seat  of  administrative  power.  The  Muromachi 
era  commenced  not  simply  with  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  the  two  Courts,  but  also  with  the 
establishment  of  some  semblance  of  order  in 
the  affairs  of  the  Ashikaga.  A  material  in- 
crease of  the  power  of  the  provincial  nobles 
renders  the  era  still  further  remarkable.  The 
Fujiwara,  the  Taira,  the  Minamoto,  the  Hdjo, 
and  the  early  Ashikaga  leaders  had  all  placed 
before  themselves  the  complete  centralisation 
of  authority  in  their  own  hands.  Yoshimitsu 
was  content  with  a  smaller  result.  The  office 
of  Shogun  remained  in  his  possession,  but  a 
large  measure  of  local  autonomy  was  granted  to 
certain  great  military  chiefs,  on  condition  of  their 
loyal  services  in  preserving  order.  Further,  an 

26 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

administrative  post  (kwanryo],  second  in  impor- 
tance to  that  of  Shogun  only,  was  declared  to  be 
hereditary  in  three  powerful  families,  and  its 
holders  had  virtually  uncontrolled  discretion  of 
affairs  at  Kamakura.  These  changes  seem  to 
have  been  dictated  by  a  policy  of  opportunism 
rather  than  by  calm  judgment. 

Yoshimitsu  was  swayed  at  one  moment  by 
high  impulses,  at  another  by  sensuous  inactivity. 
Incapable  of  persistence  in  great  efforts,  he  had 
no  sooner  accomplished  his  immediate  purpose 
than  he  reverted  to  a  condition  of  luxurious  ease 
and  dilettanteism.  Just  as  his  study  of  Bud- 
dhism, though  profound  while  it  lasted,  brought 
in  the  end  only  an  access  of  epicureanism,  so  the 
lessons  of  history  taught  him  to  purchase  a  brief 
respite  from  warfare  by  concessions  which  could 
not  fail  to  aggravate  the  difficulties  of  his  succes- 
sors. Two  years  after  the  unification  of  the 
monarchy,  he  took  the  tonsure  and  retired  from 
official  life.  But  he  continued  to  exercise  ad- 
ministrative authority,  just  as  the  ex-Emperors 
had  done  at  the  close  of  the  Heian  epoch.  In 
fact  he  aped  the  fashions  of  Imperialism,  whereas 
the  Minamoto  and  the  Hojo  had  carefully  pre- 
served their  status  of  subjects.  Whenever  he 
went  abroad,  his  escort  resembled  that  of  a 
sovereign,  and  the  magnificence  of  his  mansion 
at  Muromachi  as  well  as  the  beauty  of  the 
grounds  surrounding  it,  won  for  it  the  name 
of  the  "palace  of  flowers."  He  built  for  him- 

27 


JAPAN 

self  in  his  nominal  retirement  a  three-storeyed 
edifice,  the  Kinkaku-ji,  or  "  golden  pavilion," 
which  is  still  one  of  the  sights  of  Kyoto.  The 
great  territorial  nobles  had  to  contribute  mate- 
rials for  its  construction ;  the  whole  interior  was 
a  blaze  of  gold,  and  sumptuous  banquets  were 
given  there  with  accompaniment  of  music  and 
dancing. 

From  the  days  of  Yoshimitsu  the  Ashikaga 
ceased  to  exercise  administrative  power.  That 
was  done  by  the  Wardens  (Kwanryo)  at  Kama- 
kura  whom  they  had  themselves  created.  In 
Kyoto  the  Regents  had  held  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment, in  Kamakura  the  Vicegerents,  and  now 
the  same  procedure  was  followed  by  the  War- 
dens, while  the  Sh'oguns  themselves  lived  a  life 
of  ease  and  indolence  in  Kyoto.  But  neither 
among  the  Wardens  nor  the  Sb'oguns  was  there 
found  a  genius  capable  of  controlling  the  ele- 
ments of  disturbance  that  grew  out  of  the  system 
of  local  autonomy  established  by  Yoshimitsu. 
The  country  was  gradually  converted  into  an 
arena  where  every  one  fought  for  his  own  hand. 
Any  man  that  deemed  himself  strong  enough  to 
win  a  prize  in  the  shape  of  estates  and  power, 
stepped  into  the  lists  and  turned  his  lance  against 
the  weakest  adversary  he  could  discern.  Finally, 
a  dispute  about  the  succession  to  the  Shogunate 
furnished  a  line  of  general  division,  and  there 
ensued  a  contest  known  in  history  as  the  "  eleven 
years*  war." 

28 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

At  the  close  of  this  long  struggle  Kyoto  lay 
almost  in  ruins.  Temples,  palaces,  and  dwellings 
had  been  razed  to  the  ground,  and  the  people 
were  so  demoralised  that  robbery  and  gambling 
became  their  chief  occupations.  Yet  this  was 
only  the  prelude  to  a  wider  contest  of  still  more 
promiscuous  nature.  The  incidents  of  the  time 
recall  the  scenes  of  tumult  and  confusion  pro- 
duced upon  a  theatrical  stage  when  "excursions 
and  alarums  "  are  prescribed  by  the  playwright 
to  create  an  impression  of  universal  and  bewil- 
dering unrest.  The  details  cannot  be  reduced 
to  any  easily  intelligible  shape.  They  are 
nothing  more  than  the  vicissitudes  that  befell 
lord  after  lord,  family  after  family,  in  an  univer- 
sal assault  of  arms.  Nobody  took  any  thought 
about  the  Imperial  Court.  Resources  to  bury 
an  Emperor  or  to  crown  him  had  to  be  begged 
or  borrowed,  and  even  the  necessaries  of  daily 
life  could  scarcely  be  procured  by  the  sovereign's 
household.  The  SKogun  himself  was  an  object 
of  almost  equal  neglect.  If  splendid  examples 
of  fealty  and  heroism  illumine  the  miserable 
story,  its  gloom  is  deepened  by  as  many  instances 
of  treachery  and  self-seeking.  Retainers  did  not 
hesitate  to  murder  their  lords ;  lieutenants  to 
mutiny  against  their  captains.  The  probable 
reward  of  treason  become  the  commonest  meas- 
ure of  fidelity.  Short  intervals  of  peace  and  rest 
varied  the  long  battle,  and  once,  under  the  rule 
of  a  Nagato  chieftain,  Ouchi  Yoshitoki,  Kyoto 

29 


JAPAN 

recovered  some  semblance  of  prosperity.  But 
shortly  after  his  departure  from  the  city,  noble- 
men of  Imperial  lineage  might  be  seen  en- 
deavouring to  earn  a  few  cash  by  delivering 
lectures  in  the  streets,  or  begging  for  "  Regent's 
pence "  to  support  the  Court,  and  the  Emperor 
himself  was  driven  by  dire  necessity  to  sell  his 
autographs  for  daily  bread. 

Meanwhile,  despite  the  promiscuous  character 
of  the  fighting  throughout  the  country,  the 
south  and  the  north  were  still  the  nuclei  of 
the  contest,  and  as  each  succeeding  phase  of  the 
struggle  brought  with  it  the  ruin  of  some  of 
the  great  clans  that  had  constituted  the  strength 
of  Kamakura  or  of  Kyoto,  the  provinces  that 
stood  comparatively  aloof  from  this  devastating 
warfare,  or  lay  beyond  the  range  of  the  tide  of 
bloodshed,  developed  eminent  strength.  Such 
were  the  provinces  included  in  the  district 
called  "  Tokaido,"  or  the  "  Eastern-sea  circuit," 
a  naturally  rich  and  densely  populated  part  of 
the  Empire. 

Among  the  Tokaido  chieftains  who  now  began 
to  act  leading  roles  upon  the  stage,  were  Takeda 
Shingen  of  Kai,  Uyesugi  Kenshin  of  Yechigo, 
Oda  Nobunaga  of  Owari,  Hashiba  Hideyoshi, 
afterwards  known  as  the  Taiko,  a  follower  of 
Nobunaga,  and  Tokugawa  lyeyasu  of  Mikawa. 
This  quintette  saved  Japan.  Without  them  she 
must  have  become  divided  into  a  number  of 
principalities,  as  her  neighbour,  Korea,  had  been, 

30 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

and  like  Korea  she  might  have  lost  many  of  the 
qualities  that  make  for  national  greatness. 

Takeda  Shingen  seems  to  have  been  devoid  of 
every  feeling  that  could  interfere  with  the  prose- 
cution of  his  purposes.  His  nature  lacked  an 
emotional  side ;  his  will  was  adamant ;  his  ideas 
presented  themselves  with  lightning  rapidity  and 
in  perfect  order.  He  neglected  no  resources  of 
training  and  erudition,  and  he  made  the  welfare 
of  the  people  an  object  as  important  as  the  disci- 
pline of  his  soldiers. 

Oda  Nobunaga,  on  the  contrary,  was  the  very 
type  of  a  jovial,  careless  warrior.  An  able  leader, 
an  intrepid  and  daring  captain,  with  all  the  qual- 
ities necessary  to  secure  obedience  and  attract 
devotion,  his  fault  was  that  he  relied  chiefly  on 
the  force  of  arms,  and  trusted  more  to  the  strength 
and  swiftness  of  a  blow  than  to  the  subtlety  of 
its  delivery.  These  two  men  already  towered 
high  above  all  their  contemporaries  when  the 
long  record  of  war  and  confusion  reached  its  last 
chapter. 

Militant  Buddhism  had  now  again  become  a 
great  power  in  the  State.  At  the  darkest  hour 
of  the  Muromachi  epoch,  even  the  priests  in 
Kyoto  succumbed  to  the  general  demoralisation, 
and  were  found  among  the  gamesters  and  marau- 
ders. One  sect  only,  the  Ikko,  possessed  large 
influence,  owing  to  the  virtue  and  eloquence  of 
its  great  preacher,  Renjo.  But  this  sect  believed 
in  the  sword  as  a  weapon  of  propagandism,  and 


JAPAN 

did  not  hesitate  to  enlist  the  most  lawless  and 
unscrupulous  elements  of  the  population  among 
its  adherents.  The  religious  fanatics  were  strong 
enough  to  defy  the  governors  of  the  northern 
provinces,  where  their  principal  centre  of  power 
lay.  They  destroyed  family  after  family  of  their 
opponents,  and  even  the  illustrious  Hosokawa 
Harumoto,  one  of  the  most  powerful  nobles  of 
the  time,  had  to  appeal  to  the  Nichiren  sect  for 
aid  against  them.  Thus  the  religious  bodies 
wielded  a  power  which  no  one,  though  he  were 
the  Shogun  himself,  could  afford  to  disregard. 
Even  the  Shinto  priests  of  Ise  had  a  military 
organisation  numbering  thousands  of  halberdiers. 
Under  such  circumstances  Christianity  made 
its  advent  in  Japan.  It  was  brought  to  Kiushiu 
by  the  Portuguese,  and  with  it  came  fire-arms, 
as  well  as  many  evidences  of  a  new  and  dazzling 
civilisation.  A  large  number  of  people  adopted 
it,  less,  perhaps,  because  its  doctrines  convinced 
them,  than  because  several  of  the  prominent 
nobles,  attracted  by  the  material  novelties  that 
came  in  the  train  of  the  new  creed,  and  by  the 
prospects  of  the  commerce  it  foreran,  set  the 
example  of  welcoming  the  Christian  propagan- 
dists. A  fresh  element  of  disturbance  was  thus 
introduced.  Christianity  did  not  disarm  opposi- 
tion by  displays  of  gentleness  or  forbearance.  It 
relied  on  the  stalwart  methods  which  in  mediaeval 
Europe  bound  the  unbeliever  on  the  rack  and  the 
recusant  to  the  stake.  The  Buddhist  and  Shinto 

32 


HOO'IH    /CAOII    MIST    -I  U  -(U.A\l    U7.A    8MMUT8OD 

.teiiirj 

' 
.tnii  .     .-t- 

o   .e 


COSTUMES    AND    HE  AD- DRESS    OF   THE    HEIAN    EPOCH. 


1.  Commander-in-chtef. 

2.  Prince. 

3.  Guard, 

4.  Palace  Attendant. 

5.  General. 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

priests  combined  against  the  foreign  faith,  and  its 
chief  patron,  the  great  Ouchi  clan,  was  over- 
thrown. 

Oda  Nobunaga  had  now  asserted  his  superior- 
ity to  nearly  all  rivals  in  arms.  He  was  ably 
assisted  by  Hashiba  Hideyoshi,  one  of  the  great 
men  of  the  world,  not  of  Japan  only.  Nobu- 
naga's  career  was  a  series  of  brilliant  victories,  but 
to  describe  it  in  any  detail  would  require  an  array 
of  names  and  an  analysis  of  clan  relations  intoler- 
ably confusing  to  a  foreign  reader.  Among  the 
enemies  he  had  to  encounter  were  the  monks  of 
Hiyei-zan  and  Hongwan-ji,  and  while,  on  the 
one  hand,  he  destroyed  these  great  monasteries 
and  put  many  of  their  inmates  to  the  sword,  on 
the  other,  he  assumed  towards  Christianity  an 
attitude  of  political  friendship  rather  than  of 
conscientious  approval.  His  protection  of  the 
alien  creed  has  been  variously  interpreted,  but 
there  cannot  be  much  doubt  that  though  he 
allowed  his  son  to  embrace  the  Roman  Catholic 
doctrine,  and  though  Christianity,  under  the 
aegis  of  his  favour,  obtained  some  twenty  thou- 
sand converts  in  Kyoto  alone,  he  cared  little  for 
it  at  heart,  and  saw  in  it  mainly  a  weapon  for 
diminishing  the  dangerous  and  turbulent  strength 
which  the  Buddhist  priests  had  long  possessed. 
Nobunaga  has  been  compared  to  Cromwell,  but 
his  disposition  was  permeated  by  a  vein  of  gen- 
eral bonhomie  foreign  to  the  character  of  the  great 
Puritan.  His  method  of  reform  was  as  thorough 

VOL.    II.  —  3  33 


JAPAN 

as  his  military  discipline.  Order  and  peace  were 
soon  restored  in  Kyoto  under  his  sway,  and  when 
the  Sfogun  attempted  to  resort  to  the  wonted 
device  of  levying  forced  contributions  on  the 
citizens  for  his  own  luxurious  purposes,  Nobunaga 
presented  to  him  a  sternly  worded  document  of 
arraignment,  in  which  seventeen  charges  of  mis- 
conduct were  categorically  set  forth.  Only  one 
general  could  make  head  against  Nobunaga  in  the 
field.  This  was  Takeda  Shingen,  and  fortunately 
for  the  peace  of  the  realm  he  died  before  his 
rivalry  could  effectually  change  the  current  of 
events,  then  at  length  setting  towards  adminis- 
trative unity.  Takeda* s  exploits  need  not  be 
considered  here  further  than  to  say  that  they 
contributed  materially  to  regenerate  the  era 
and  to  restore  the  nation's  ideal  of  soldierly 
qualities. 

Oda  Nobunaga  met  a  fate  not  uncommon  in 
that  age  :  he  fell  a  victim  to  the  treachery  of 
a  lieutenant.  But  swift  and  signal  vengeance 
was  wreaked  upon  the  traitor  by  Hashiba  Hide- 
yoshi,  who  after  Oda's  death  became  the  most 
prominent  figure  in  the  realm. 

Hideyoshi's  career  was  in  one  sense  typical  of 
the  era  ;  in  another,  strangely  inconsistent  with  it. 
Had  not  the  time-honoured  lines  of  social  distinc- 
tion and  hereditary  prestige  been  entirely  obscured, 
such  a  man  could  never  have  risen  to  the  highest 
place  attainable  by  a  subject.  Born  in  the  family 
of  a  poor  soldier,  the  best  future  anticipated  for 

34 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

him  by  his  father  was  service  in  the  lowest 
ranks  of  some  nobleman's  retinue.  As  a  boy  he 
gave  no  indications  of  great  capacity,  his  physical 
imperfections  —  a  stunted  stature,  an  exception- 
ally dark  complexion,  and  a  strikingly  ill-favoured 
countenance  —  not  being  compensated  by  any 
show  of  diligence  in  study  or  aptitude  in  acquir- 
ing knowledge.  Wayward,  mischievous,  unen- 
dowed with  any  attractive  or  seemingly  promising 
qualities,  he  received  no  help  from  any  friendly 
hand  on  the  way  to  fortune.  Yet  in  a  sense  his 
humble  origin  may  be  said  to  have  aided  him,  for 
had  he  belonged  to  any  of  the  great  families  whose 
struggle  for  supremacy  was  deluging  the  country 
with  blood,  the  mere  fact  of  his  lineage  must 
have  arrayed  against  him  a  host  of  hostile  rivals. 
Solely  by  force  of  military  genius  he  conquered 
wherever  he  fought ;  by  an  innate  perception  of 
the  value  of  justice  and  the  uses  of  clemency  he 
made  content  and  tranquillity  the  successors  of 
turbulence  and  disaffection ;  by  an  extraordinary 
insight  into  the  motives  of  men's  actions,  he  was 
able  to  detect  and  utilise  opportunities  that 
would  have  been  invisible  to  ordinary  eyes  ;  by 
signal  magnanimity  he  disarmed  his  enemies,1 
and  by  subtle  appeals  to  the  emotional  side  of 
human  nature  he  won  the  homage  of  men  who, 
until  the  moment  of  contact  with  him,  had 
believed  themselves  his  superiors.  Himself 
swayed  by  strong  emotions,  he  flashed  readily 

1  See  Appendix,  note  4. 

35 


JAPAN 

into  anger,  but  the  errors  to  which  passion  might 
have  goaded  him  were  generally  averted  by  noble 
yielding  to  impulses  of  generosity  and  fair  play.1 
Capable  of  profound  and  lasting  attachments,  he 
inspired  in  his  followers  sentiments  of  love  and 
devotion,  and  while  he  shrank  from  no  means  to 
attain  an  end,  it  was  his  delight  to  repair  ulti- 
mately with  generous  hand  any  temporary 
injuries  he  inflicted  on  others  in  his  pursuit  of 
fortune.2  Born  in  an  epoch  where  the  idea  of 
nation  or  empire  had  little  significance  in  the 
ears  of  military  chiefs  each  fighting  for  his  own 
hand,  he  set  the  welfare  of  the  country  and  the 
dignity  of  the  Empire  above  all  other  considera- 
tions, and  thought  rather  of  the  greatness  of 
Japan  than  of  the  aggrandisement  of  a  fief.  It 
has  been  truly  said  that  the  Muromachi  era  was 
in  many  respects  the  darkest  period  of  Japanese 
history,  yet  it  produced  Oda  Nobunaga,  Hashiba 
Hideyoshi,  Tokugawa  lyeyasu,  and  many  others 
who,  though  less  illustrious,  deserved  in  many 
respects  almost  equal  honour. 

Hideyoshi's  campaigns  need  not  occupy  atten- 
tion. It  is  enough  to  say  that  he  brought  the 
whole  Empire  within  one  circle  of  administrative 
sway,  of  which  he  himself  was  the  centre.  The 
office  of  regent  he  caused  to  be  conferred  on 
himself,  though  it  had  never  previously  been 
held  by  any  man  lacking  the  qualification  of 
imperial  descent,  and  he  would  fain  have  been 

1  See  Appendix,  note  5.  a  See  Appendix,  note  6. 


THE     MILITARY     EPOCH 

SKogun  also,  partly  because  he  had  a  parvenu's 
love  of  rank,  partly  because  he  deemed  such 
distinctions  essential  to  the  efficient  exercise  of 
governing  power.  But  the  social  canon  which 
restricted  the  SKbgunate  to  a  prince  of  the  blood 
or  a  descendant  of  the  Minamoto  family,  could 
not  be  set  aside  even  in  favour  of  a  Hideyoshi.1 
Thus  his  career,  beginning  in  hopeless  obscurity 
and  culminating  in  practical  headship  of  the  Em- 
pire, implies  a  complete  overthrow  of  the  old 
barriers  of  caste  and  precedent,  yet  it  also  indi- 
cates the  existence  of  a  limit  beyond  which  no 
ambition  might  soar.  There  were,  in  fact,  two 
thrones  in  Japan,  the  throne  occupied  by  the 
"  Child  of  Heaven "  (Tenshi)  and  the  throne 
occupied  by  the  feudal  sovereign,  the  Shogun,  and 
the  occupancy  of  the  former  was  not  more 
strictly  confined  to  the  lineal  descendants  of 
Jimmu  than  was  the  occupancy  of  the  latter  to 
a  scion  of  the  Minamoto. 

Not  suffering  from  the  defect  that  disqualified 
Hideyoshi  for  the  Shogunate,  and  succeeding  to  the 
fruits  of  Hideyoshi's  genius,  lyeyasu,  the  Toku- 
gawa  chief,  was  able  to  organise  a  feudal  govern- 
ment that  lasted  for  two  and  a  half  centuries, 
whereas  the  Taiko's  sway  may  be  said  to  have  died 
with  himself.  lyeyasu  and  his  achievements, 
however,  must  be  spoken  of  independently. 

Upon  the  story  of  the  military  epoch  one  trait 
of  Japanese  character  is  indelibly  impressed,  a 

1  See  Appendix,  note  7. 

37 


JAPAN 

tendency  to  trespass  upon  direct  authority  and  to 
submit  to  it  when  delegated.  During  the  first 
five  centuries  of  the  historical  period,  this  trait 
is  illustrated  by  the  anomaly  of  a  nation's  obedi- 
ence to  titles  derived  from  imperialism  by  aris- 
tocrats that  flouted  the  imperial  prerogatives. 
During  the  next  five  centuries  the  same  picture 
is  seen  in  more  varied  forms,  —  the  Emperor 
Shirakawa  and  his  successors  ruling  under  the 
shadow  of  the  throne  they  had  abdicated ;  the 
Hojo  Vicegerents  governing  for  the  Minamoto 
through  the  authority  of  a  puppet  Sfibgun ;  the 
Wardens  of  later  days  administering  affairs  under 
commissions  from  the  faineant  Ashikaga.  It  ap- 
pears to  have  been  a  political  necessity  that  the 
source  of  power  should  be  abstracted  from  the 
agents  of  its  exercise. 


Chapter  II 


MANNERS  AND   CUSTOMS    OF  THE 
MILITARY  EPOCH 


1 


notable  points  in  a  retrospect  of  the 
Military  epoch  stand  out  clearly  by  com- 
parison with  the  imperial  system  of  the 
eighth  century.  There  ceased  to  be  any 
regularly  organised  provincial  army  from  which 
troops  could  be  detached  at  fixed  intervals  for 
service  under  the  Central  Government  in  the  cap- 
ital. There  ceased  to  be  any  pretence  that  the 
Crown's  right  of  eminent  domain  received  prac- 
tical recognition.  There  ceased  to  be  any  active 
faith  in  the  doctrine  that  every  subject  in  the 
Empire  belonged  to  the  sovereign  as  a  child  be- 
longs to  its  father.  The  local  chieftains  thrust 
themselves  between  the  Throne  and  the  people ; 
held  wide  estates  where  the  Government's  tax- 
collector  might  not  set  foot,  and  required  of 
their  vassals  obedience  even  to  the  point  of  ignor- 
ing the  sovereign's  mandates  and  defying  his 
emissaries.  The  Court  nobles  in  Kyoto  were  not 
without  vassals  of  their  own ;  but  this  difference 
existed,  that  whereas  the  Court  nobles  received 
their  servants  as  a  gift  from  the  Emperor,  and 

39 


JAPAN 

had  only  such  power  over  them  as  the  law  per- 
mitted, the  provincial  chiefs  exercised  absolute 
authority  over  their  followers,  rewarding  them 
with  lucrative  posts  or  grants  of  land  and  punish- 
ing them  with  imprisonment  or  death.  It  was 
thus  that  there  grew  up  in  the  provinces  a  large 
body  of  men  skilled  not  only  in  administration 
but  also  in  arms ;  bound  by  strong  ties  of  grati- 
tude, loyalty,  and  expediency  to  their  own  partic- 
ular chiefs,  and  strictly  forbidden  to  transfer  their 
services  elsewhere  without  special  permission. 
Japan,  as  an  entity,  did  not  exist  in  the  mental 
vista  of  these  vassals.  For  each  his  fief  was  his 
country. 

Class  distinctions  partially  lost  their  ancient 
value  under  such  circumstances.  The  provincial 
captains,  coming  into  collision  with  the  Court 
nobles  who  were  immeasurably  superior  to  them 
in  social  rank,  by  right  of  might  stripped  them 
of  their  estates  and  dignities,  and  even  sent  them 
into  exile  or  contrived  their  death.  The  provin- 
cial vassals,  often  men  of  mean  origin,  the  de- 
spised semmin  who  formerly  laboured  under  so 
many  disabilities,  found  themselves  raised  to  the 
level  of  honoured  subjects,  brought  within  reach 
of  high  offices,  and  entrusted  with  large  au- 
thority. Thus  the  old  distinction  of  ry'dmin  (re- 
spectable people  )  and  semmin  ( degraded  people ) 
disappeared  in  great  part,  and  there  grew  up  in 
its  place  a  classification  derived  less  from  accident 
of  birth  than  from  the  nature  of  a  man's  employ- 

40 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

ment.  The  broad  lines  of  the  new  division  were 
four:  military  (shi),1  agricultural  (no),  industrial 
(ko\  and  commercial  (s&o);  the  merchant  being 
placed  at  the  bottom  of  the  f  scale,  the  artisan 
above  him,  and  the  farmer,  who  paid  the  greater 
part  of  the  taxes,  ranking  next  after  the  soldier. 

It  is  plain,  however,  that  this  four-fold  classifi- 
cation of  shi-rio-Ko-sKo  excludes  many  means  of 
gaining  a  livelihood  which  are  practised  in  every 
organised  community.  Religious  prejudices  were 
chiefly  responsible  for  the  exclusion.  From  what 
had  been  already  written  about  the  extremely 
strict  laws  of  pollution  and  purification,  the 
reader  will  readily  infer  that  not  all  professions, 
be  they  ever  so  useful  and  honest,  could  be  re- 
garded by  the  Japanese  as  honourable.  Thus 
every  occupation  that  brought  a  man  into  contact 
with  unclean  things,  as  the  corpses  of  human 
beings,  the  carcasses  of  animals,  and  offal  of  all 
descriptions,  was  degraded.  In  obedience,  again, . 
to  another  code  of  ethics,  occupations  that  ca- 
tered for  the  sensuous  side  of  human  nature,  and 
every  occupation  without  any  fixed  scale  of  re- 
muneration, suffered  some  taint  of  ignominy.  A 
large  section  of  the  population  consequently  fell 
under  a  social  ban,  which  was  not  removed  until 
the  great  reformation  of  the  Meiji  era  in  recent 
times.  Not  infrequently  the  members  of  this 
section  are  broadly  spoken  of  as  Eta  (people  of 
many  impurities).  But  the  Eta  were  only  a 

1  Sec  Appendix,  note  8. 

41 


JAPAN 

fraction  of  the  whole.  Originally  immigrants 
from  Korea  who  practised  the  professions  of 
tanning  and  furriery,  they  owed  their  name  to 
their  polluted  occupation,  and  their  descendants 
through  all  generations,  as  well  as  any  Japanese 
that  drifted  into  their  rank,  occupied  the  position 
of  social  pariahs.  The  great  fifth  estate  of  me- 
diasval  Japan,  however,  is  very  imperfectly  de- 
scribed by  the  term  Eta.  It  included  a  large 
number  of  industrials  and  professionals  whose 
social  debasement  constitutes  an  interesting  illustra- 
tion of  the  ethics  of  mediaeval  Japan.  The  CKori 
headed  the  list.  This  term  has  no  dishonourable 
import :  the  ideographs  used  in  writing  it  signify 
"  head  officer."  Originally  the  Chori  were 
Buddhist  friars.  Their  name  occurs  historically 
for  the  first  time  in  the  days  of  the  celebrated 
scholar  and  philanthropist  Shotoku  (572-621). 
He  established  a  charity  hospital,  and  gave  to  the 
priests  that  had  charge  of  its  interior  arrangements 
and  ministrations  the  name  ofC/iori,  calling  those 
that  attended  to  the  exterior  duties  Hinin,  or 
"outcasts."  It  has  already  been  stated  that,  in 
early  times,  the  tendance  of  the  sick  was  held  to 
pollute  a  man,  and  even  the  charitable  doctrine 
inculcated  by  Buddhism  could  not  protect  the 
CKori  from  the  taint  of  their  occupation,  while 
those  who,  for  the  sake  of  mere  pecuniary  rec- 
ompense, undertook  to  dispose  of  the  bodies  of 
the  dead  and  to  perform  menial  duties  in  con- 
nection with  the  hospital,  were  considered  un- 

42 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

worthy  to  rank  as  human  beings.  During  the 
interval  of  six  centuries  that  separated  the  time 
of  Prince  Shotoku  from  the  commencement  of 
the  Kamakura  epoch  under  Yoritomo,  nothing  is 
heard  of  either  CKori  or  Hinin,  and  it  is  believed 
that  the  latter  term  was  applied  only  to  crimi- 
nals of  the  lowest  class.  But  when  Yoritomo 
undertook  the  re-organisation  of  society  on  a  ba- 
sis of  military  discipline,  he  appointed  an  officer 
called  Danzayemon  Yorikane  to  the  post  of  Chori, 
entrusting  him  with  absolute  control  over  all 
persons  excluded  from  the  four-fold  classification 
of  soldier,  farmer,  mechanic,  and  merchant.  It 
appears,  therefore,  that  the  office  thus  rehabili- 
tated bore  no  relation  whatever  to  its  prototype 
in  Prince  Shotoku's  time. 

The  list  of  persons  who  thus  became,  in  effect, 
subjects  of  Danzayemon,  was  very  long.  At  the 
head  of  it  should  be  placed,  perhaps,  the  Hinin, 
or  outcasts,  whose  principal  duties  were  connected 
with  executions  and  prisons.  The  office  of  heads- 
man had  a  special  occupant,  but  all  executions 
other  than  decapitation  were  performed  by  the 
Hinin,  under  the  direction  of  the  CKbri.  To 
them  was  entrusted  the  head  of  a  criminal  for 
exposure  during  a  fixed  period,  and  it  was  their 
business  to  conduct  a  condemned  man  when  he 
was  carried  around  the  city  on  horseback  as  a  pre- 
liminary to  execution.  They  also  discharged  the 
office  of  torturers  in  judicial  trials  ;  they  tattooed 
criminals ;  they  wielded  the  spear  at  crucifixions, 

43 


JAPAN 

and  the  saw  when  heads  were  taken  off  with  that 
instrument;  and  they  executed  all  the  sentences 
pronounced  against  Christians.  In  battle  the 
Hinin  were  placed  in  charge  of  the  heads  taken 
from  the  enemy,  and  at  the  last  great  fight  which 
finally  established  the  Tokugawa  sway,  the  Dan- 
zayemon  of  the  time  received  a  gold  seal  with  the 
significant  inscription,  "  gatherer,"  in  token  of 
the  numerous  trophies  thus  entrusted  to  him. 
Beside  this  seal  there  lies  among  the  heirlooms 
of  the  Danzayemon  family  an  autograph  copy 
of  the  Lotus  Scripture,  which,  when  the  cele- 
brated Buddhist  priest,  Nichiren,  was  led  out  for 
execution,  he  gave  to  one  of  the  Hinin  who  com- 
miserated his  fate.  Had  there  been  in  any  age  a 
literary  Danzayemon,  he  might  have  enriched  his 
country  with  some  invaluable  memoirs. 

The  Eta  seem  to  have  occasionally  enlisted  for 
services  connected  with  criminals,  but  their  gen- 
eral occupation  was  the  tanning  of  hides  and  the 
preserving  of  skins.  It  need  scarcely  be  said  that 
men  who  cremated  the  bodies  of  the  dead  were 
classed  among  the  Hinin,  as  also  were  the  guar- 
dians of  tombs.  The  pollution  of  all  these  is 
easily  understood,  but  that  a  similar  stigma  should 
attach  to  plasterers,  and  makers  of  writing-brushes 
and  ink,  was  due  to  a  less  evident  cause,  namely, 
that  their  trade  obliged  them  to  handle  the  hair 
and  bones  of  animals. 

The  category  of  degraded  persons  was  largely  ex- 
tended by  the  inclusion  of  all  who  resorted  to  irreg- 

44 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

ular  methods  of  obtaining  a  livelihood.  Among 
these  the  most  numerous  were  the  beggars.  Many 
kinds  of  beggars  plied  their  profession  in  ancient 
Japan.  There  was  the  ordinary  itinerant  beggar ; 
the  cross-roads  beggar ;  the  river  beggar  (so  called 
because  he  inhabited  a  hut  constructed  of  boulders 
from  the  bed  of  a  stream) ;  the  mendicant  friar, 
who  sometimes  asked  for  alms  in  the  most  com- 
monplace manner,  sometimes  went  about  with  a 
wooden  bowl  and  a  long-sleeved  robe,  sometimes 
beat  a  metal  vessel  or  a  gourd  and  recited  prayers 
or  intoned  formulae  about  the  evanescence  of  life, 
sometimes  chaunted  verses  and  struck  attitudes; 
and  finally,  there  was  the  mummer  beggar,  who 
acted  a  part  similar  to  that  of  the  waits  in  Eng- 
land. Almost  as  numerous  as  the  beggars  were 
the  professional  caterers  for  amusement  in  various 
forms  :  the  man  who,  with  a  deftly  waved  fan  in 
his  hand  and  a  variously  folded  kerchief  on  his 
head,  danced  a  musicless  measure  by  the  roadside ; 
the  puppet-show  man  ;  the  performer  of  the  saru- 
gaku  music ;  the  monkey-master ;  the  keeper  of 
a  miniature  shooting-gallery  where  flirting  and 
assignations  were  more  important  than  archery ; 
the  actor,  the  Dog-of-Fo  dancer,  the  brothel- 
keeper,  the  peep-show  man,  the  dog-trainer, 
the  snake-charmer,  the  story-teller,  the  riddle- 
reader,  the  juggler,  the  acrobat,  and  the  fox- 
tamer.  Necromancers  and  diviners  were  also 
reckoned  among  outcasts, — a  significant  fact,  indi- 
cating the  robust  sentiment  of  the  military  age  as 

45 


JAPAN 

compared  with  the  spirit  of  the  time  when  inter- 
preters of  the  Book  of  Changes  (the  Inyb-shi}  were 
consulted  on  the  eve  of  every  important  enterprise. 
It  is  not  to  be  inferred,  however,  that  superstition 
had  faded  out  of  the  life  of  the  people  at  large. 
The  agricultural,  the  industrial,  and  the  mercan- 
tile classes  continued  to  torment  themselves  as 
much  as  ever  about  omens,  affinities,  coincidences, 
apparitions,  demonology,  enchantment,  and  divi- 
nation, and  even  the  inferior  orders  of  the  mili- 
tary often  laboured  under  similar  delusions.  The 
great  founder  of  the  Tokugawa  dynasty,  lyeyasu, 
makes  a  strange  appearance  in  the  annals  of  the 
monkey-masters  just  enumerated.  On  entering 
the  city  of  Yedo  to  make  it  his  stronghold,  his 
favourite  horse  fell  sick,  and  instead  of  consulting 
a  horse-leech,  he  ordered  the  CKori  to  summon 
a  monkey-man,  whose  incantations  cured  the 
animal.  Thenceforth,  on  the  1 1  th  of  January, 
year  after  year,  the  CKori  received  several  strings 
of  cash  in  the  castle  scullery  for  distribution  among 
the  monkey-masters. 

All  persons  who  made  a  livelihood  by  means 
of  performing  animals  were  credited  with  occult 
methods.  Even  the  trainer  of  the  docile  dog  was 
regarded  mysteriously.  On  the  occasion  of  the 
Moriya  rebellion  in  the  sixth  century,  Toribe-no- 
Yorozu,  whose  title  shows  that  he  had  to  tend 
the  birds  kept  in  the  Palace,  entrenched  himself 
with  a  hundred  companions  and  defied  the  Impe- 
rial troops.  Threatened  with  starvation,  he  forced 

46 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

his  way  through  the  besiegers,  and  reaching  the 
bank  of  a  river,  cut  off  his  own  head  so  that  it 
fell  into  the  stream.  His  body  was  thereafter 
hewed  into  eight  pieces,  and  these,  according  to 
Korean  custom,  were  exposed  at  eight  places.  It 
is  related  that  a  white  dog  which  had  been  his 
pet,  ran  perpetually  for  several  days  from  fragment 
to  fragment  of  the  corpse,  guarding  them  from 
birds  and  beasts  of  prey,  and  finally,  finding  the 
head  in  the  river,  carried  it  into  a  deserted  house, 
and  having  secreted  it  there,  remained  at  the 
place  until  death  from  hunger  ended  the  vigil. 
The  Emperor,  hearing  of  these  things,  caused 
the  parts  of  the  dead  rebel's  body  to  be  collected 
and  decently  buried,  and  erected  in  memory  of 
the  dog  a  tomb  which  may  be  seen  to  this  day 
in  the  province  of  Kawachi.  Numerous  instances 
of  similar  intelligence  and  fidelity  made  it  easy 
for  people  to  believe  that  the  dog  was  more  than 
a  mere  beast,  and  as  for  the  fox,  its  cunning  had 
always  been  counted  supernatural.  The  fox- 
tamer  spoken  of  above  did  not  actually  exhibit 
the  uncanny  animal  at  public  performances.  His 
business  was  to  conjure  in  its  name.  There  had 
once  been  a  rustic  who  by  virtue  of  the  incanta- 
tions of  a  Buddhist  priest  obtained  the  brush  of  a 
fox  in  a  dream.  Some  intricate  process  of  deduc- 
tion led  men  to  believe  that  if  certain  formulas 
were  repeated  and  certain  rites  observed,  one 
could  procure  the  services  of  a  fox  to  benefit  one- 
self at  the  cost  of  injuring  some  one  else.  If  three 

47 


JAPAN 

balls  of  rice  were  tied  to  a  straw  rope  a  hundred 
palms  long,  and  were  carried  at  midnight  on  a 
hundred  consecutive  nights  to  the  shrine  of  Inari, 
a  palm's  length  of  the  rope  being  deposited  at  the 
shrine  on  each  occasion,  the  rice  would  ultimately 
be  eaten  by  a  fox  which  thenceforth  became  the 
servant  of  the  worshipper,  provided  that  his  heart 
was  free  from  carnal  lust.  The  professional  fox- 
tamer  undertook  to  produce  the  same  result  with- 
out these  troublesome  preliminaries,  and  one  could 
thus  enrich  oneself  and  bring  fever  or  madness  on 
an  enemy.  On  the  other  hand,  if  a  man  pos- 
sessed this  power,  it  was  believed  that  the  fact 
showed  itself  by  miraculous  and  voluntary  mate- 
rialisation of  his  thoughts,  so  that  if  he  happened 
to  think  of  a  snake  as  he  watched  a  friend  eating 
a  meal,  the  reptile  would  immediately  appear 
among  the  friend's  viands,  or  if  a  sorrowful  mood 
visited  him  as  he  reflected  on  another's  conduct, 
the  subject  of  his  reflections  would  at  once  be 
moved  to  tears.  The  fox-tamer,  dog-trainer,  or 
snake-charmer  being  thus  unable  to  fully  control 
his  wayward  servant,  ordinary  men  shunned  him 
carefully ;  a  fact  which  doubtless  helped  to  deter- 
mine the  degraded  position  assigned  to  him  by 
official  classifiers. 

The  fact  that  while  the  keeper  of  a  brothel 
was  placed  among  the  polluted,  no  such  stigma 
attached  to  the  inmates  of  the  brothel,  must  be 
attributed  to  the  theory  that  the  adoption  of  a  life 
of  shame  could  never  be  a  matter  of  free  volition, 

48 


g 


TOKUGAWA  IVEVASU. 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

but  must  either  be  attended  by  extenuating  self- 
sacrifice  or  result  from  uncontrollable  misfortune. 
In  truth,  the  ranks  of  prostitution  were  chiefly 
recruited  with  children  sold  to  save  their  parents 
or  brothers  from  starvation  or  dishonour  and  with 
kidnapped  girls.  No  female  regarded  the  pro- 
fession with  any  feeling  but  the  profoundest 
horror. 

Among  the  ignominious  populace  there  were 
some  whose  relegation  to  such  a  place  is  hard  to 
understand ;  as  the  makers  of  tiles,  of  hats,  of 
bow-strings,  of  lamp-wicks,  and  of  horse-reins ; 
the  caster  of  metal,  the  stone-cutter,  the  ferry- 
man, the  dyer,  and  the  barrier- watchman. 

Danzayemon  Yorikane,  the  first  official  com- 
missioned to  control  this  large  class  of  persons, 
was  a  military  man  of  some  standing,  but  his 
office  ultimately  shared  the  degradation  attaching 
to  its  connections.  The  power  he  wielded  and 
the  wealth  he  accumulated  must  have  compensated 
to  a  great  extent  for  his  loss  of  caste.  As  to  his 
power,  the  members  of  the  degraded  classes  being 
disqualified  to  enter  a  Court  of  Justice,  full  author- 
ity to  adjudicate  their  disputes  and  punish  their 
offences  was  vested  in  Danzayemon ;  and  as  for 
his  wealth,  it  is  recorded  that  many  merchants 
of  standing  borrowed  large  sums  from  him  habitu- 
ally. Such  transactions  were  secretly  arranged, 
for  even  pecuniary  dealings  with  a  CKori  involved 
contamination.  The  representative  of  the  family 

in  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  century,  desiring 
VOL.  ii.  —  4 


JAPAN 

to  break  down  the  irksome  barriers  of  caste, 
invited  his  debtors  to  a  banquet.  The  great 
majority  of  them  resented  the  invitation  as  a 
gross  impertinence,  but  some  few  felt  constrained 
to  accept  it.  When  these  latter  sat  down  to  the 
magnificent  repast  prepared  for  them,  they  found 
their  soup-bowls  filled  with  gold  coins,  and  the 
souvenirs  handed  to  them  when  they  took  their 
leave  were  their  own  promissory  notes.  Danzaye- 
mon  nevertheless  remained  an  outcast.  No  pay- 
ment could  purchase  his  elevation  from  that  grade. 
It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  alike  for  him,  for 
his  family,  and  for  all  members  of  the  various 
professions  and  trades  under  his  control,  marriage 
with  persons  of  the  superior  classes  was  strictly 
interdicted. 

The  extraordinary  vicissitudes  of  men's  fortunes 
during  the  Military  epoch  were  reflected  in  the 
state  of  Kyoto.  At  one  time  the  very  centre^of; 
luxury  and  magnificence,  it  became,  at  another, 
a  scene  of  desolation  and  penury.  Kiyomori, 
the  Taira  chief,  had  the  wisdom  to  see  that  the 
strength  of  his  soldiers  and  the  integrity  of  his 
officials  could  not  be  preserved  amid  the  turbu- 
lence, disorder,  lawlessness,  and  debauchery  of  the 
Imperial  city.  He  made  Fukuhara,  near  Hyogo, 
the  seat  of  administration,  and  moved  the  Court 
thither,  much  against  the  will  of  the  aristocratic 
families.  Very  soon  Kyoto's  condition  was  such 
that  a  poet  of  the  time  described  it  as  a  town 
where  "  the  streets  had  become  grassy  moors;  the 

50 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

moonlight  shone  on  ruins  only,  and  the  autumn 
wind  told  sad  stories  of  the  past."  But  when  the 
Hojo  family  fell  from  power  and  Kamakura  ceased 
to  be  the  seat  of  government,  Kyoto  quickly  re- 
covered its  old  importance.  An  anonymous  plac- 
ard exposed  at  the  market-place  in  the  early  part 
of  the  fourteenth  century  gave  the  following 
picture  of  the  metropolis  :  — 

The  things  that  abound  in  the  capital  now  are  night- 
attacks  ;  robberies  ;  forged  Imperial  decrees ;  calls  to 
arms  ;  galloping  messengers ;  empty  tumults  ;  decap- 
itations ;  recusant  priests  and  tonsured  laymen ;  de- 
graded nobles  and  upstart  peers ;  gifts  of  estates  and 
confiscations  of  property ;  men  rewarded  and  men 
slaughtered  ;  eager  claimants  and  sad  petitioners  ;  bag- 
gage consisting  of  manuscripts  only  ;  sycophants  and 
slanderers ;  friars  of  the  Zen  and  priests  of  the  Ritsu ; 
leaps  to  fortune  and  neglected  talents ;  shabby  hats  and 
disordered  garments ;  holders  of  unwonted  batons  and 
strangers  asking  the  path  to  the  Palace  ;  Imperial  secre- 
taries who  affect  wisdom,  but  whose  falsehoods  are  more 
foolish  than  the  folly  of  fools ;  soldiers  saturated  with 
finery,  who  wear  hats  like  cooking-boards  and  strut 
about  fashionably  at  the  fall  of  evening  in  search  of 
beautiful  women  to  love  ;  wives  who  simulate  piety  but 
live  lives  abominable  to  the  citizens ;  official  hunters 
holding  each  an  emaciated  hawk  that  never  strikes 
quarry ;  leaden  dirks  fashioned  like  big  swords  and 
worn  with  the  hilts  disposed  for  ready  drawing;  fans 
with  only  five  ribs  ;  gaunt  steeds  ;  garments  of  thinnest 
silk ;  second-hand  armour  hired  by  the  day ;  warriors 
riding  to  their  offices  in  palanquins ;  plebeians  in  bro- 
cade robes ;  civilians  in  war  panoply  and  surcoats  ; 
archers  so  ignorant  of  archery  that  their  falls  from  their 

51 


JAPAN 

horses  outnumber  their  arrows ;  new  exercises  of  arms 
without  any  teacher  to  show  their  methods  ;  Kyot5  and 
Kamakura  seated  side  by  side  making  verselets.  All 
over  the  country  poetasters  abound  and  literary  critics 
are  still  more  numerous.  Hereditary  vassals  and  new 
retainers  practise  equal  license ;  a  lawless  society  of 
samurai.  Dog-mimes  which  forestalled  the  ruin  of 
Kamakura  are  all  the  fashion  here.  Men  meet  every- 
where to  drink  tea  and  light  incense,  while  the  fires  of 
the  watch-houses  in  each  street  burn  in  rude  sheds 
built  with  three  boards  and  festooned  with  official  cur- 
tains. Many  samurai  are  still  without  residences,  and 
many  half-built  houses  disfigure  the  city.  Vacant  spaces 
swept  last  year  by  conflagrations  are  counted  lucky  sites 
to-day.  Deserted  dwellings  stand  desolate.  Discharged 
samurai  troop  through  the  streets,  preserving  their  official 
strut,  but  without  any  business  except  to  make  obeisances 
to  one  another.  The  old-time  hills  of  blossom  and  groves 
of  peach  are  unvisited.  Men  and  horses  crowd  the  Im- 
perial city.  Samurai  with  high-sounding  titles,  relics  of 
past  glory,  would  fain  lay  aside  these  encumbrances, 
but  men  who  in  the  morning  were  foddering  beasts 
of  burden,  find  themselves  in  the  evening  with  full 
purses  and  in  high  favour  on  account  of  some  petty  ser- 
vice rendered  to  the  Emperor.  Merit  is  neglected  on 
the  one  hand,  lawlessness  is  exalted  on  the  other.  The 
recipients  of  fortune  doubt  its  reality,  and  can  only  trust 
blindly  to  their  Sovereign  who  bestowed  it.  A  strange 
thing,  truly,  the  unification  of  the  nation  !  A  lucky  fel- 
low I,  who  have  seen  these  singular  events  come  to 
pass,  and  now  jot  down  a  fraction  of  them ! 

Of  the  confusion  existing  in  the  capital  and  of 
the  critical  eyes  with  which  some  men  of  the 
time  viewed  it,  this  anonymous  writer  gives  us 


MANNERS    AND     CUSTOMS 

a  vivid  impression.  It  is,  indeed,  bewildering  to 
reflect  what  a  complete  subversal  of  the  old  order 
of  things  must  have  taken  place  when  the  rude 
warriors  from  the  provinces,  unlettered,  ignorant 
of  Court  etiquette,  without  respect  for  time- 
honoured  rank  and  careless  of  social  canons, 
trooped  into  the  Imperial  city  and  substituted 
their  blunt,  practical  ways  for  the  effeminate 
perfunctoriness  of  the  hereditary  officials.  A 
Japanese  historian,  writing  when  the  memory  of 
the  events  he  described  was  still  fresh,  said :  — 

Even  when  the  whole  nation  was  in  danger,  its 
rulers  did  not  know  that  they  were  hated  by  the  people. 
The  great  families  abandoned  themselves  to  luxury,  and 
thought  only  of  finding  means  to  gratify  their  costly 
caprices.  Talentless  and  incapable,  they  could  never- 
theless obtain  ranks  and  rewards  wholesale.  They  sat 
in  the  seats  of  judgment  and  stood  in  the  places  of 
guards,  but  they  themselves  paid  no  respect  to  the  laws 
nor  knew  anything  of  discipline.  Simulating  loyalty, 
they  made  a  pretence  of  seeking  the  Sovereign's  con- 
sent before  initiating  a  measure,  but  in  reality  their  acts 
were  purely  arbitrary.  Thus,  when  the  samurai  grasped 
the  administrative  power,  they  began  to  ask,  "  What 
profit  is  there  in  these  Court  nobles  ? "  So  they  de- 
prived them  of  their  estates,  not  hesitating  even  to 
confiscate  lands  that  belonged  to  the  Imperial  family. 
The  social  fetes  and  feasts  were  abolished,  and  nothing 
survived  but  severe  ceremonies.  The  Imperial  Pal- 
aces became  desolate,  and  subjects  no  longer  repaired 
thither  to  do  homage  to  the  Sovereign.  Ministers  of 
State,  who  from  generation  to  generation  had  received 
the  nation's  homage,  had  to  bow  their  heads  to  petty 

53 


JAPAN 

officials  appointed  by  the  SKogun,  who  was  now  the  de- 
pository of  power.  The  Five  Great  Families  began  to 
curry  favour  with  these  low-born  officials.  They 
studied  the  provincial  dialects  and  gestures  because 
their  own  language  and  fashions  were  ridiculed  by  the 
samurai  whom  they  met  in  the  streets.  They  even 
copied  the  costumes  of  the  rustic  warriors.  But  it  was 
impossible  for  them  to  hide  their  old  selves  completely. 
They  lost  their  traditional  customs  and  did  not  gain 
those  of  the  provinces,  so  that,  in  the  end,  they  were 
like  men  who  had  wandered  from  their  way  in  town 
and  country  alike :  they  were  neither  samurai  nor  Court 
Nobles. 

But  the  Court  nobles  had  their  revenge,  for 
the  luxury  and  debauchery  which  the  samurai, 
treated  with  such  contempt  at  the  outset,  ulti- 
mately proved  the  ruin  of  the  samurai  themselves. 
Kyoto  was  a  kind  of  political  barometer.  When 

reached  its  highest  point  of  magnificence  and 
splendour,  a  revolution  could  always  be  pre- 
dicted. Probably  its  zenith  of  glory  was  in  the 
days  of  Ashikaga  Yoshimitsu  (1368-1374).  He 
undertook  the  building  of  temples  and  palaces  on 
a  scale  suggesting  that  the  resources  of  the  nation 
had  only  one  fitting  purpose,  the  embellishment 
of  the  capital.  A  pagoda  three  hundred  and 
sixty  feet  high  and  a  "  golden  pavilion  "  (Kinka- 
ku-ji}  were  among  his  most  celebrated  construc- 
tions. The  former  disappeared  altogether  in  the 
"  eleven  years'  war  "  half  a  century  later,  and  of 
the  latter  only  a  portion  remains,  —  a  three- 
storyed  pavilion,  the  ceiling  of  its  second  storey 

54  ' 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

decorated  with  paintings  by  a  celebrated  artist, 
and  the  whole  interior  of  the  third  storey,  ceil- 
ing, walls,  floor,  balcony-railing,  and  projecting 
rafters,  covered  with  gilding  which  was  thickly 
applied  over  varnish  composed  of  lacquer  and 
hone-powder.  Traces  alone  of  the  gold  can  now 
be  seen,  but  the  effect  when  the  edifice  was  in 
full  preservation  must  have  been  dazzling.  Yo- 
shimasa,  who  succeeded  to  the  Shogunate  in 
1449  and  is  remembered  as  Japan's  foremost 
dilettante,  erected  a  Silver  Pavilion  (  Ginkakuji) 
in  imitation  of  his  predecessor's  foible,  but  never 
carried  it  to  completion.  Of  Kyoto  as  it  was  in 
his  days,  at  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
before  long  years  of  war  reduced  it  once  more  to 
ruins,  only  a  faint  conception  can  be  formed 
from  the  descriptions  of  subsequent  writers,  for 
they  employ  adjectives  of  admiration  instead  of 
recording  intelligible  facts.  Here  is  what  one 
of  them  says  :  — 

The  finest  edifices  were,  of  course,  the  Imperial 
Palaces.  Their  roofs  seemed  to  pierce  the  sky  and 
their  balconies  to  touch  the  clouds.  A  lofty  hall  re- 
vealed itself  at  every  fifth  step  and  another  at  every 
tenth.  No  poet  or  man  of  letters  could  view  these 
beauties  unmoved.  In  the  park,  weeping  willows, 
plum-trees,  peach-trees,  and  pines  were  cleverly  planted 
so  as  to  enhance  the  charm  of  the  artificial  hills.  Rocks 
shaped  like  whales,  sleeping  tigers,  dragons  or  phoe- 
nixes, were  placed  around  the  lake,  where  mandarin 
ducks  looked  at  their  own  images  in  the  clear  water. 
Beautiful  women  wearing  perfumed  garments  of  exquisite 

55 


JAPAN 

colours  played  heavenly  music.  As  for  the  "  Flower 
Palace"  of  the  SKbgun,  it  cost  six  hundred  thousand 
pieces  of  gold  (about  a  million  pounds  sterling. )  The 
tiles  of  its  roof  were  like  jewels  or  precious  metals.  It 
defies  description.  In  the  Takakura  Palace  resided  the 
mother  of  the  Stiogun  and  his  wife.  A  single  door  cost 
as  much  as  twenty  thousand  pieces  of  gold  (^32,000). 
In  the  eastern  part  of  the  city,  stood  the  Karasu-maru 
Palace,  built  by  Yoshimasa  during  his  youth.  It  was 
scarcely  less  magnificent.  Then  there  was  the  Fujiwara 
Palace  of  Sanjo,  where  the  mother  of  the  late  Shogun  was 
born.  All  the  resources  of  human  intellect  had  been 
employed  to  adorn  it.  At  Hino  and  Hirohashi  were 
mansions  out  of  which  the  mother  of  the  present  Shogun 
came.  They  were  full  of  jewels  and  precious  objects. 
(The  writer  then  enumerates  the  palaces  of  twenty-seven 
noble  families. )  Even  men  that  made  medicine  and 
fortune-telling  their  profession,  and  petty  officials  like 
secretaries,  had  stately  residences.  There  were  some 
two  hundred  of  such  buildings,  constructed  entirely  of 
white  pine  and  having  four-post  gates  (i.  e.  gates  with 
flank  entrances  for  persons  of  inferior  rank).  Then 
there  were  a  hundred  provincial  nobles,  great  and  small, 
each  of  whom  had  a  stately  residence,  so  that  there 
were  altogether  from  six  to  seven  thousand  houses  of  a 
fine  type  in  the  capital. 

The  writer  then  devotes  pages  to  enumerating 
the  great  temples  that  stood  in  the  city  and  its 
suburbs.  Of  one  he  says  that  it  was  "  bathed  in 
blossoms  as  a  mountain  is  in  clouds,"  and  that 
"  in  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun  the  roof  glowed 
like  gold,"  while  "every  breath  of  air  wafted 
around  the  perfume  of  flowers."  Of  another  — 
SKo-kaku-jiy  which  Yoshimitsu  built  —  he  affirms 

56 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

that  one  of  the  pagodas  cost  a  hundred  times  as 
much  as  thirteen  pagodas  of  a  century  later.  Of 
a  third  he  says  that  "  its  fifty  pagodas  stood  like 
a  row  of  stars."  And  his  eulogies  end  with 
the  lament :  "  Alas  !  The  city  of  flowers  which 
was  expected  to  last  for  ten  thousand  years, 
became  a  scene  of  desolation ;  the  home  of  the 
fox  and  the  wolf.  Even  the  temples  of  Tqji  and 
Kitano,  which  survived  for  a  time,  were  ultimately 
reduced  to  ashes.  Peace  succeeds  war,  rise  fol- 
lows fall  in  all  ages,  but  the  catastrophe  of  the 
Onin  era  (1467)  obliterated  the  ways  of  Emperor 
and  of  Buddha  at  once.  All  the  glories  of  Impe- 
rialism and  all  the  grandeur  of  the  temples  were 
destroyed  for  ever.  Well  did  the  poet  write : 
'  The  capital  is  like  an  evening  lark.  It  rises 
with  song  and  descends  among  tears/ ' 

Something  must  be  allowed  for  the  obvious 
exaggeration  of  this  writer,  but  the  fact  remains 
that  the  city  of  Kyoto  attained  its  zenith  of 
grandeur  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century ; 
that  it  was  reduced,  a  few  years  later,  to  a  mere 
shadow  of  its  former  self,  and  that  it  never  again 
recovered  its  old  magnificence.  Yet,  even  in  the 
days  of  which  the  writer  quoted  above  speaks  in 
such  glowing  terms,  Kyoto  could  not  compare 
with  the  city  that  was  destined  to  grow  up  in  the 
east  of  the  country  during  the  eighteenth  century 
under  the  sway  of  the  Tokugawa  Shoguns. 

One  more  quotation,  from  a  work  compiled 
in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  may  be 

57 


JAPAN 

added  here  for  the  sake  of  the  plaintive  picture 
it  presents  of  the  ruin  caused  by  the  furious  and 
continuous  fighting  which  the  great  trio,  Oda 
Nobunaga,  Hashiba  Hideyoshi,  and  Tokugawa 
lyeyasu,  at  last  brought  to  an  end :  — 

From  the  time  of  the  Onin  (1467)  struggle,  the 
samurai  turned  their  back  on  the  capital  and  returned 
to  the  provinces.  The  days  of  the  Imperial  city's 
splendour  were  over.  The  Emperor's  palace  was  rebuilt, 
but  on  a  greatly  reduced  scale,  and  Ashikaga  Yoshimasa 
caused  some  fine  edifices  to  be  erected.  But  when  the 
war  grew  still  fiercer,  in  the  Kiroku  era  (1528-1532), 
every  street  became  a  battle-field ;  the  soldiers  applied 
the  torch  to  sacred  temple,  stately  mansion,  and  spacious 
palace  alike,  and  the  citizens  fled  for  their  lives  to 
remote  places.  Desolation  grew  more  desolate.  The 
two  rivers  of  Kamo  and  Kibune  joined  their  streams 
and  flowed  into  the  street  of  Madeno-koji,  so  that  a 
dyke  had  to  be  built  to  stem  the  floods,  and  willow- 
trees  having  been  planted  on  it,  people  built  their 
houses  there  and  thought  it  a  fair  place,  so  humble 
had  their  ideas  become.  The  Imperial  Palace  was  a 
roughly  constructed  edifice.  It  had  no  earthen  walls, 
but  was  surrounded  with  bamboo  fences.  Common 
people  boiled  tea  and  sold  it  in  the  garden  of  the 
Palace  under  the  very  shadow  of  the  Cherry  of  the 
Right  and  the  Orange  of  the  Left.  Children  came 
and  made  it  their  playground.  On  the  sides  of  the 
main  avenue  to  the  Imperial  pavilion  they  modelled 
mud  toys ;  and  sometimes  they  peeped  inside  the  blind 
that  hid  the  Imperial  apartments,  but  no  one  was 
visible  within.  The  Emperor  himself  lived  on  money 
gained  by  selling  his  autographs.  The  meanest  citizen 
might  deposit  a  few  coins  together  with  a  written  state- 

58 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

ment  of  his  wishes,  as  "  I  want  such  and  such  a  verse 
from  the  *  Hundred  Poets'  Songs/  or  I  desire  a  copy 
of  this  or  that  section  of  the  '  Ise  Tales.' '  After  a 
certain  number  of  days  the  commission  was  sure  to  be 
executed.  At  night  the  dim  light  of  the  apartment 
where  the  Palace  Ladies  lived  could  be  seen  from 
Sanjo  Bridge.  So  wretched  and  lowly  had  everything 
become. 

Much  the  same  story  might  be  told  of  Kama- 
kura,  the  capital  of  the  Minamoto  and  the  Hojo ; 
of  Odawara,  the  second  capital  of  the  Hojo,  and 
of  Yamaguchi  in  the  south,  where  the  Ouchi 
family  sat  ruling  the  six  provinces  of  Suo,  Nagato, 
Buzen,  Chikuzen,  Aki,  and  Iwami,  and  growing 
rich  by  means  of  their  monopoly  of  the  country's 
foreign  trade ;  and  whither  many  of  the  Court 
nobles  fled  when  Kyoto  ceased  to  be  habitable 
by  any  but  strong  soldiers.  The  cities  of  Japan 
have  invariably  grown  to  greatness  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Government. 

The  great  vicissitudes  mentioned  above  convey 
a  fact  which  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  in  studying 
the  Military  epoch,  namely,  that  it  extended  over 
a  period  of  nearly  four  centuries,  and  that,  during 
the  social  and  political  convulsions  which  marked 
its  course,  many  of  the  customs  and  institutions 
of  the  nation  underwent  changes  almost  as  violent 
as  the  events  amid  which  they  occurred. 

As  to  the  dwellings  of  the  aristocratic  classes 
in  Kyoto  during  the  first  two  hundred  years  of 
the  Military  epoch  —  the  "  illustrious  houses," 

59 


JAPAN 

as  they  were  called  —  there  is  little  to  be  added 
to  what  has  already  been  written  on  this  subject 
with  regard  to  the  Heian  epoch.  Conspicuous 
progress  was  subsequently  made  in  the  matter  of 
interior  decoration,  but  of  that  it  will  be  necessary 
to  speak  elsewhere. 

Military  residences,  however,  presented  some 
special  features.  Their  general  character  aimed 
at  simplicity.  There  were  two  enclosures,  each 
surrounded  by  a  strong  boarded  fence.  A  fosse 
encircled  the  whole.  Outer  and  inner  gate  alike 
were  "  two  footed,"  and  the  latter  had  sometimes 
flanking  watch-towers.  These  gates  seldom  car- 
ried roofs,  though  an  occasional  exception  was 
made  in  favour  of  a  roof  covered  with  earth  to  a 
depth  of  some  inches.  Within  both  gates  were 
places  of  arms,  where  various  weapons  stood 
ranged,  and  inside  the  second  gate  there  was  a 
kind  of  vestibule  for  depositing  foot-gear.  Arch- 
ery ranges  and  ball  courts  were  provided,  but  the 
residence  itself  was  small  and  plain.  It  comprised 
a  hall  having  a  dais  with  a  lacquered  chair  for 
distinguished  persons,  a  women's  apartment,  a  ser- 
vants' room,  and  a  kitchen.  The  heating  appa- 
ratus was  a  hearth  sunk  in  the  floor,  and  all  the 
household  utensils  were  kept  in  a  cupboard.  It 
was  the  policy  of  Yoritomo  and  the  Hojo  Vice- 
gerents to  encourage  a  plain  style  of  living.  The 
outer  fence  of  the  great  Hojo  Yasutoki's  mansion 
being  in  a  state  of  decay,  his  officers  wished  to 
build  an  embankment,  but  he  withheld  his  as- 

60 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

sent,  saying  that  the  task  would  require  much 
labour,  and  that  an  embankment  could  never  pro- 
tect him  if  the  bravery  of  his  comrades  did  not 
suffice.  To  such  an  extent  was  this  spirit  of  aus- 
tere simplicity  carried  that  great  military  chiefs, 
who  possessed  wide  estates  and  commanded  many 
soldiers,  might  be  found  sleeping  in  a  veranda, 
their  guards  in  the  open  places-of-arms  beside  the 
middle  gate,  and  their  servants  on  the  floor  of  the 
stable ;  an  arrangement  typical  of  absolute  readi- 
ness for  any  emergency.  By  and  by  the  Zen  sect 
of  Buddhism  began  to  flourish.  It  inculcated  the 
doctrine  of  abstraction  which  was  supposed  to 
render  the  devotee  superior  to  all  his  surround- 
ings, and  to  educate  a  heart  that  defied  fate.  This 
creed  immediately  attracted  the  samurai.  The 
mood  it  produced  seemed  to  him  an  ideal  temper 
for  displays  of  military  valour  and  sublime  forti- 
tude ;  the  austere  discipline  it  prescribed  for  de- 
veloping that  mood  appealed  to  his  conception 
of  a  soldier's  practice.  Even  the  construction  of 
his  dwelling  reflected  this  new  faith.  He  fitted 
up  a  room  for  purposes  of  reading  and  abstraction, 
calling  it  a  "study"  (sho-iri},  and  to  the  inner  gate 
of  the  enclosure  he  gave  the  name  gen-kwan,  or 
"  the  hall  of  the  origin,"  in  allusion  to  the  saying 
of  Laotsze,  "  the  origin  of  the  origin,  the  gate  of 
all  truth."  A  different  meaning  afterwards  came 
to  be  attached  to  the  gen-kwan,  as  will  be  seen 
presently.  The  "  study  "  was,  in  fact,  a'  modified 
form  of  the  old  "  bedroom."  The  latter  had 

61 


JAPAN 

bamboo  blinds  hung  round  it,  and  was  closed  by 
latticed  shutters  swinging  on  hinges,  which  could 
be  raised  so  as  to  form  a  kind  of  awning  in  fine 
weather,  but,  when  lowered,  rendered  the  room 
dark  and  gloomy.  In  the  houses  of  the  Zen 
monks  sliding  shutters  covered  with  thin  white 
paper,  possessing  the  peculiar  translucidity  of  un- 
glazed  paper  made  from  rice-straw,  were  substi- 
tuted for  bamboo  blinds,  and  the  hanging  lattices 
were  either  retained,  or  replaced  by  wooden  doors 
which  could  be  slid,  along  a  groove  and  thus 
removed  altogether  during  the  day.  There  re- 
sulted a  chamber  immensely  improved  in  the  mat- 
ter of  light,  warmth,  and  privacy,  for  although 
the  papered  doors  gave  free  passage  to  light, 
they  effectually  concealed  from  outside  observa- 
tion everything  within.  Another  feature  bor- 
rowed from  the  Zen  monasteries  was  an  alcove. 
This  consisted  of  a  recessed  space,  on  one  side  of 
which  a  sacred  picture  could  be  hung  or  a  Bud- 
dhist image  placed,  to  serve  as  an  object  for  con- 
templation while  practising  the  rite  of  abstraction ; 
on  the  other  side,  a  cupboard  above  and  a  cup- 
board below,  separated  by  a  shelf,  were  used  for 
writing  materials,  books,  and  incense  utensils.  In 
its  original  form  the  alcove  was  unpretentious, 
being  destined  simply  to  serve  the  purposes  just 
mentioned.  But  its  decorative  capabilities  soon 
obtained  recognition.  Rare  woods  were  sought 
for  its  ground  slab  and  its  shelves  ;  curious  timbers 
for  its  pillars,  and  pictures  by  great  artists  or  rich 

62 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

products  of  the  lacquerer's  art  for  the  panels  of 
its  cupboards.  It  became,  too,  a  species  of  cab- 
inet for  the  display  of  objects  of  virtu.  Celebrated 
paintings,  or  autographic  scrolls  by  renowned  men, 
were  suspended  on  its  wall,  and  choice  specimens 
of  porcelain,  jade,  or  bronze  were  ranged  on  its 
shelves.  That  use  of  the  alcove  belongs,  how- 
ever, to  a  late  period  of  the  epoch,  and  is  to  be 
associated  with  the  architecture  of  the  "illustrious 
houses  "  in  the  cities  rather  than  with  that  of  the 
military  residences  in  the  provinces.  The  original 
and  long-obeyed  conception  was  that  the  objects 
appropriate  to  an  alcove  were  limited  to  a  re- 
ligious picture  or  image,  a  bell  (sho)  for  ringing 
during  prayer,  a  "  worldly-dust-brush "  (hossu} 
such  as  priests  carried,  and  the  "  three  armour- 
pieces  ".of  Buddha,  namely,  a  pricket  candlestick, 
a  censer,  and  a  flower-vase.1  The  use  of  the 
tatami  —  that  is  to  say,  the  thick  mat  of  plaited 
straw  and  invariable  dimensions,  which  has  already 
been  described  in  speaking  of  the  Heian  epoch  — 
was  greatly  extended  during  the  times  now  under 
consideration.  Instead  of  being  laid  on  the  dais 
of  state  and  in  sleeping  and  women's  chambers 
only,  these  essentially  Japanese  objects  covered 
the  floors  of  all  the  rooms,  even  military  men  not 
considering  them  too  comfortable.  It  has  to  be 
observed,  however,  that  men  of  very  high  rank, 
social  or  official,  did  not  sit  in  direct  contact  with 
the  mats :  they  used  cushions,  round  or  square, 

1  See  Appendix,  note  9. 

63 


JAPAN 

made  of  silk  crape  stuffed  with  cotton  wool.  Ulti- 
mately these  came  into  vogue  in  every  well-to-do 
household. 

Tiled  roofs  were  still  regarded  as  altogether 
beyond  the  competence  of  any  but  the  greatest 
folk.  It  is  for  that  reason  that  in  the  above- 
quoted  descriptions  of  Kyoto's  grandeur  in  its 
palmiest  days,  the  play  of  light  upon  the  roofs 
of  notable  edifices  is  a  feature  always  emphasised. 
The  reference  is  not,  however,  to  ordinary  lustre- 
less tiles  of  baked  earthenware,  but  to  richly 
glazed  tiles  procured  from  China,  and  also  to 
copper  slabs  with  which  the  roofs  of  palaces  and 
great  temples  were  sometimes  covered.  The 
green  tile  of  China  captivated  Japanese  fancy. 
But  it  could  not  be  manufactured  in  Japan  until  a 
comparatively  late  period  of  the  Military  epoch. 
The  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  found 
Japanese  potters  producing  their  first  vitrified 
glazes  on  small  utensils  for  the  tea-drinking 
ceremony.  Glazed  tiles  were  still  beyond  their 
strength.  By  way  of  substitute  for  them,  slabs 
of  copper  bronze  were  employed,  which  quickly 
developed  a  beautiful  green  patina  when  exposed 
to  climatic  influence.  Expensive  as  such  a  sub- 
stitute seems,  it  was  not,  perhaps,  so  very  costly 
by  comparison,  seeing  what  difficulties  attended 
the  carriage  of  stoneware  tiles  from  the  interior 
of  China  to  Kyoto.  Roofs  in  general  were 
boarded  until  the  sixteenth  century,  when  in- 
struction derived  from  Korean  potters  gave  an 


UTVia- 

.jfoo.'rfo.'crTi  ;  re 


fe}  ,>IAW  10 

;  Ilsrfa-rfoncc  ;L-..:i.. . . 


A'lAl 


JAPANESE  WEAPONS  OF  WAR,  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY. 

Spear  ;  armour  ;  war-fan  ;  baton  :  standard  ;  conch-shell  ;  cannon  ;  matchlock. 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

extensive  impetus  to  the  manufacture  of  tiles. 
In  the  better  class  of  house  the  roof-boards  were 
held  in  place  by  girders,  but  humble  folk  used 
logs  of  timber  or  stones  to  prevent  wind-stripping, 
and  these  weights  imparted  an  untidy,  rude  appear- 
ance to  the  structure. 

The  "  hall  of  the  origin  "  (gen-kwan)  served  a 
new  purpose,  and  underwent  a  corresponding 
modification  towards  the  close  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  It  has  been  stated  that  in  Kyoto  the 
guards  of  a  mansion  were  usually  quartered  in 
a  back-room,  whereas  in  provincial  military 
mansions  they  occupied  barracks  on  either  side 
of  the  inner  gate,  which  the  samurai,  in  their 
zeal  for  the  Zen  doctrines,  called  the  gen-kwan. 
The  Kyoto  nobles,  in  the  Muromachi  epoch, 
finding  it  expedient  to  have  guards  close  to  the 
entrance,  enlarged  the  vestibule  of  the  main  build- 
ing so  that  it  became  a  "  spacious  chamber,"  and, 
by  a  process  of  derivation  at  once  apparent,  gave 
the  name  gen-kwan  to  the  vestibule  of  this  cham- 
ber. Thus  was  reached  the  final  form  of  the 
aristocratic  mansion,  —  a  double  vestibule  (gen- 
kwan}>  the  larger  section  being  for  the  ingress 
and  egress  of  the  master  of  the  house  and  his 
guests;  the  smaller  for  that  of  the  womankind, 
the  soldiers,  and  the  servants,  and  a  hall  (hiroma)9 
around  which,  as  well  as  in  the  vestibule,  weapons 
of  various  kinds  were  ranged  in  upright  racks. 

In  the  same  epoch  (Muromachi),  when  the  tea 
ceremony,  which  will  be  spoken  of  presently,  had 
VOL.  ii.  —  5  65 


JAPAN 

become  popular,  a  special  room,  or  suite  of  rooms, 
was  added  for  its  uses.  Large  mansions  had  also 
a  chamber  with  a  stage  for  the  mimetic  dances 
called  saru-gaku,  in  which  every  accomplished 
gentleman  was  supposed  to  be  able  to  take  a 
part,  and  for  which  stores  of  magnificent  costumes 
were  an  essential  part  of  aristocratic  household 
furniture.  -, 

It  was,  however,  in  the  matter  of  interior  deco- 
ration that  architecture  made  its  chief  advance  at 
this  period.  From  the  twelfth  century,  a  great 
school  of  decorative  painters,  known  in  art  records 
as  the  Yamato  Academy,  began  to  attract  national 
attention,  and  were  merged,  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, into  the  Tosa  Academy,  whose  members 
carried  the  art  of  pictorial  decoration  to  an  ex- 
traordinary degree  of  elaboration  and  splendour. 
Masters  of  colour  harmonies,  highly  skilled  in 
conventionalising  natural  forms,  and  unencum- 
bered by  any  canons  of  cast  shadows,  these  ex- 
perts were  now  employed  to  decorate  the  sliding 
doors,  walls,  and  ceilings  of  the  various  chambers, 
and,  from  the  fifteenth  century,  they  were  assisted 
in  the  work  by  the  Sesshiu  and  Kano  academies, 
with  their  noble  breadth  of  conception  and  ten- 
derness of  fancy,  so  that  the  decorative  motives 
ranged  from  battle  scenes,  historical  episodes, 
mythical  legends,  and  even  genre  subjects,  to  land- 
scapes, waterscapes,  representations  of  bird  and 
animal  life,  and  floral  designs  of  large  variety.1 

1  See  Appendix,  note  10. 

66 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

Pictorial  decoration,  elaborate  and  beautiful 
as  it  was,  did  not  constitute  the  principal  item 
of  cost  in  constructing  these  mansions.  It  was 
rather  upon  rare  woods,  uniquely  grown  timbers, 
exquisite  joinery,  and  fine  plastering  that  great 
sums  were  lavished.  Single  boards  eighteen  feet 
square;  pine  stems  forty  feet  long  without  any 
appreciable  difference  of  diameter  throughout ; 
carpenter's  work  as  accurate  as  though  all  the 
parts  of  a  building  had  grown  together  naturally 
instead  of  being  joined  artificially,  —  these  involved 
outlays  even  greater  than  the  sums  lavished  on 
the  decorative  artist. 

Protection  against  fire  was  sought  by  con- 
structing separate  storerooms,  having  solid 
wooden  frames  completely  covered  with  mud  and 
plaster.  In  earlier  times,  the  chief  object  of  a 
storeroom  had  been  security  against  damp.  Raised 
floors  were  consequently  the  distinctive  feature 
of  such  edifices.  But  the  conflagrations  by  which 
Kyoto  was  devastated  in  the  Military  epoch  taught 
the  people  that  fire  was  their  worst  enemy,  and 
they  soon  saw  the  expediency  of  protecting  all 
the  timbers  of  a  building  against  direct  contact 
with  flame.  In  the  thirteenth  century  the  first 
fire-proof  storehouse  (dozo)  made  its  appearance, 
and  quickly  took  the  shape  it  has  retained  ever 
since.  Over  the  wooden  framework  layer  after 
layer  of  plaster  was  laid,  each  being  suffered  to 
dry  fully  before  the  next  was  applied,  until  a 
thickness  of  as  much  as  two  feet  was  obtained. 


JAPAN 

The  windows  and  doorways  had  hinged  shutters, 
similarly  solid ;  the  roof  also  was  plastered  pend- 
ing the  time  when  tiles  became  more  accessible, 
and  a  supply  of  mud  was  kept  for  the  purpose  of 
sealing  all  crevices  in  case  of  necessity.1 

Although  men  were  so  constantly  required  to 
defend  their  houses  against  attack,  no  serious  at- 
tempt was  made  until  towards  the  close  of  the 
Military  epoch  to  plan  a  building  on  defensive 
lines.  Towers  were  sometimes  erected  near  the 
gate  for  the  purpose  of  watching  for  the  approach 
of  an  enemy,  and  such  expedients  were  employed 
as  fixing  nails,  point  upward,  in  the  roofs  of  en- 
closures. But  since  no  missile  of  greater  pene- 
trating power  than  arrows  had  to  be  expected,  the 
strength  of  a  building  did  not  receive  much  con- 
sideration, and  one  result  of  that  defect  was  that 
every  war  involved  the  destruction  of  many  man- 
sions by  fire.  Japanese  generals  were  not  without 
a  sense  of  the  value  of  fortifications.  A  celebrated 
example  is  that  of  the  shelter  trenches  thrown  up 
by  the  Taira  leader,  Munemori,  at  Ichi-no-Tani, 
in  the  province  of  Settsu,  towards  the  close  of  the 
twelfth  century.  This  work  is  often  spoken  of 
as  a  "  castle,"  but  in  truth  it  was  nothing  more 
than  a  field  fortification.  Between  beetling  cliffs 
on  the  south  and  a  precipitous  slope  on  the  north 
there  lay  a  plateau  which  the  Taira  captain  pro- 
tected on  the  east  and  west  by  deep  fosses,  embank- 
ments, and  strong  palisades,  effectual  obstacles,  if 

1  See  Appendix,  note  1 1 . 

68 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

well  defended,  against  the  weapons  of  that  era. 
Minamoto  Yoshitsune,  whom  Japan  counts  her 
greatest  general  after  Hideyoshi,  stormed  the 
position  by  descending  the  apparently  inaccessi- 
ble precipice  on  the  north,  and  the  fame  of  the 
exploit  gave  to  the  fortifications  a  vicarious  repu- 
tation to  which  they  were  not  really  entitled. 
Japan  had  nothing  worthy  to  be  called  a  fortress 
until  the  days  of  Oda  Nobunaga  and  Hashiba 
Hideyoshi,  and  it  was  owing  to  the  introduction 
of  fire-arms  that  her  old  custom  of  fosse,  earthen 
parapet,  and  palisade  gave  place  to  massive  solid 
structures,  Occidental  in  conception  but  Japanese 
in  their  leading  features.  The  Portuguese  dis- 
covered Japan  in  1542,  and  brought  with  them 
fire-arms.  It  is  true  that  the  Mongols,  when  they 
invaded  the  island  empire  at  the  close  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  employed  arquebuses,  but  the 
Japanese  did  not,  at  that  time,  acquire  sufficient 
knowledge  of  these  weapons  to  manufacture  and 
use  them  subsequently.  They  derived  that  knowl- 
edge from  their  Portuguese  visitors  nearly  three 
centuries  later,  and  their  weapons  of  offence  having 
thus  undergone  a  radical  change,  the  old  wooden 
wall  and  earthen  parapet  necessarily  received  mod- 
ification. Sweeping  changes  were  rapidly  effected 
in  the  system  of  fortification.  Forty  years  after 
the  coming  of  the  Portuguese,  Hideyoshi  con- 
structed Osaka  Castle.1  Forty  years  is  a  brief 
space  in  the  life  of  a  nation,  yet  that  short  inter- 

1  See  Appendix,  note  12. 


JAPAN 

val  sufficed  to  convert  the  fragile,  flimsy  structures 
of  wood  and  clay,  with  their  boarded  towers  and 
single-planked  gates,  which  the  soldiers  of  the 
Hqjo  and  the  Ashikaga  called  strongholds,  into 
colossal  castles,  with  broad  moats,  lofty  battle- 
ments, and  stupendous  escarpments  of  masonry. 

The  site  chosen  for  Qgfrfcf  Pagtlft  was  a  lofty 
plateau  on  the  bank  of  the  Yodo  River.  At  the 
time  when  Hideyoshi  fixed  his  eyes  on  this  spot, 
it  was  occupied  by  a  large  monastery  of  Shinshiu 
monks,  who,  owing  mainly  to  the  splendid  advan- 
tages that  the  position  offered,  had  managed  in 
previous  years  to  beat  off  an  assault  made  upon 
them  by  Hideyoshi's  patron,  the  renowned  sol- 
dier, Oda  Nobunaga.  That  fact  had  much  to  do 
with  the  steps  that  Hideyoshi  took  to  obtain  an 
order  from  the  Emperor  for  the  removal  of  the 
monastery  and  its  replacement  by  a  castle  which 
should  protect  the  approaches  to  the  Imperial  city 
from  the  sea.  The  plan  of  the  fortress  showed 
three  surrounding  moats  and  escarpments,  an  ar- 
rangement which  has  always  been  adopted  when- 
ever possible  by  the  architects  of  Japanese  castles. 
These  moats  were  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet 
wide  and  twenty  feet  deep,  and  they  not  only  con- 
tained from  six  to  ten  feet  of  water,  but  had 
numbers  of  wooden  stakes  fixed  in  the  bottom  to 
prevent  an  enemy  from  wading  across.  The  re- 
vetment of  the  escarp  was  built  with  polygonal 
granite  blocks,  put  together  in  the  fashion  of 
Japanese  masonry,  the  blocks  being  pyramidal  and 

70 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

having  the  small  end  of  the  pyramid  turned  inward 
and  the  broad  base  outward.  No  mortar  was 
used,  and  thus  the  revetment  presented  a  slightly 
irregular  rubble  face.  The  corners  and  angles 
were  strengthened  with  large  quoins  of  carefully 
squared  ashlar  work,  usually  bound  together  by 
strong  cramps  of  iron  or  copper.  Each  escarp- 
ment was  crowned  by  a  series  of  loopholed 
curtain-walls,  one  and  a  half  feet  thick,  ten  in  the 
outermost  enclosure,  and  five  in  each  of  the  inner ; 
and  between  these  walls,  or  parapets,  there  were 
trenches,  twelve  feet  wide  and  eighteen  feet  deep, 
covered  with  bamboos  and  earth  so  as  to  consti- 
tute pitfalls.  The  parapets  were  eight  feet  high 
on  the  face,  but  had  on  the  inner  side  a  banquette 
approached  by  stone  steps.  In  building  these 
walls  clay  mixed  with  salt  was  used,  an  old  recipe 
which  gave  a  hard  and  durable  composition.  The 
general  trace  was  irregular,  having  salient  and  re- 
entering  angles  for  purposes  of  flank  defence,  and 
the  salient  angles  were  crowned  with  pagoda- 
shaped  turrets  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet  high. 
Within  the  outermost  moat  the  space  enclosed 
was  one  hundred  acres,  and  that  within  the  in- 
nermost, namely,  the  keep  (hommaru},  measured 
twelve  and  a  half  acres.  There  were  no  buildings 
except  guardhouses  in  the  outer  belt,  but  in  the 
inner  stood  the  residence  of  Hideyoshi  as  well  as 
extensive  barracks,  and  in  the  keep-enclosure  were 
forty-seven  fire-proof  storehouses  for  provisions, 
fuel,  arms,  medicine,  and  other  necessaries,  and 


JAPAN 

finally  the  donjon  itself.  This  last,  which  had 
a  base  more  than  one  hundred  feet  square,  stood 
on  a  battering  stone  basement  forty-eight  feet  high, 
access  being  by  means  of  stone  steps  and  platforms 
with  projecting  walls  and  battlements.  The  donjon 
was  three-storeyed,  over  forty  feet  high.  Its  frame- 
work was  of  timbers,  huge  in  scantling,  and  these 
were  covered  externally  with  a  thick  coating  of 
clay  plaster  as  a  protection  against  fire.  The 
granite  blocks  used  in  constructing  the  basement 
of  the  donjon,  as  well  as  those  in  the  basements  of 
the  gates  and  turrets  and  at  the  corners  and  angles 
of  the  escarpments,  were  of  huge  size.  Many  of 
them  measured  fourteen  feet  in  length  and  breadth, 
and  some  attained  a  length  of  twenty  feet.  These 
immense  stones  had  to  be  conveyed  by  water  from 
quarries  at  a  distance  of  several  miles.  The  moats 
were  crossed  by  wooden  bridges  constructed  so  as 
to  be  easily  destroyed  by  the  garrison  in  case  of 
emergency,  and  the  main  bridge  was  built  in  such 
a  manner  that  by  the  removal  of  a  single  pin  the 
whole  structure  would  fall  to  pieces,  — a  fact  from 
which  it  derived  its  name,  "  abacus  bridge."  It 
could  thus  be  used  by  the  garrison  till  the  last 
moment.  Each  gate  opened  upon  an  inner  court 
surrounded  by  a  high  parapet,  from  which  a  cross 
fire  could  be  poured  upon  the  enemy  after  he  had 
forced  the  gate,  as  well  as  upon  the  bridge  leading 
to  the  gate.  In  short,  an  assailant,  having  broken 
through  the  massive  iron-bound  timbers  of  an 
outer  gate,  found  himself,  not  within  the  enceinte, 

72 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

but  in  a  kind  of  cul-de-sacy  where  he  became  the 
target  for  bullets,  arrows,  and  other  missiles  poured 
upon  him  from  all  sides  by  a  hidden  foe ;  and  in 
the  face  of  such  a  fire  he  had  to  turn  and  force  an- 
other gate  at  right  angles  to  the  original  entrance. 
This  method  of  division  into  spaces  separately  de- 
fensible, somewhat  on  the  principle  of  the  water- 
tight compartments  of  a  modern  war-vessel,  was 
extensively  applied  to  the  inner  keep,  so  that  an 
assailant  had  to  establish  his  footing  square  by 
square.  There  stood  also  high  towers  on  either 
side  of  the  gates,  with  numerous  loopholes  open- 
ing in  every  direction,  and  among  the  weapons 
of  defence  was  a  movable  tower  which  could  be 
wheeled  to  any  point  at  will.  The  roof  of  the 
donjon  was  tiled  with  copper,  and  the  gates  were 
sheeted  and  studded  with  iron. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  conceive  a  greater 
contrast  than  that  which  this  noble  structure  pre- 
sented to  the  so-called  "  castle "  of  one  of  the 
Minamoto  or  Hqjo  chieftains,  where  the  only 
stones  employed  were  for  the  foundations  of  the 
wooden  pillars,  and  the  only  protection  was  a 
thin  wall  of  clay-plaster  easily  penetrable  by  a 
musket  bullet.  That  an  architectural  revolution 
so  wholesale  should  have  taken  place  within  a 
period  little  longer  than  a  generation,  bears  strong 
testimony  to  the  reforming  courage  of  the  Japan- 
ese, to  their  elasticity  of  conception,  and  to  their 
fertility  of  resource.  One  imagines  that  men 
whose  military  edifices  had  not  hitherto  possessed 

73 


JAPAN 

the  defensive  capacities  even  of  a  log-hut,  must 
have  shrunk  from  the  notion  of  building  cyclo- 
pean  escarpments,  battlements,  and  donjons.  But 
nothing  has  ever  deterred  the  Japanese.  Hide- 
yoshi  not  only  planned  this  vast  work  with  perfect 
assurance,  but  by  requiring  each  of  the  great 
nobles  to  undertake  the  construction  of  a  part,  he 
succeeded  in  having  the  whole  completed  within  a 
twelvemonth.  It  will  be  objected,  perhaps,  that 
Hideyoshi  himself  towered  as  high  above  his 
countrymen  in  mental  stature  as  did  Osaka  Castle 
above  the  shanties  of  Tokiyori  and  Takauji.  But 
Hideyoshi's  castle  was  only  a  type.  Other  men 
of  his  generation  erected  strongholds  not  less 
remarkable  in  proportion  to  the  smaller  resources 
of  their  constructors  and  the  greater  inaccessi- 
bility of  fine  materials.  Several  of  these  castles 
stand  intact  to-day.  They  form  not  only  grand 
but  also  picturesque  features  in  the  landscape,  for 
while  the  diminishing  storeys  of  their  keeps 
soften  the  oppressive  effect  of  their  massiveness, 
the  graceful  curves  of  their  salient  roofs  crowned 
with  terminals  of  gold  or  copper  in  the  shape  of 
huge  carp  or  rampant  dragons,  present  a  sky-line 
at  once  bold  and  interesting. 

Hideyoshi's  castle  was  probably  the  strongest 
from  a  military  point  of  view  ever  erected  in 
Japan ;  so  strong  that  when  lyeyasu  reduced  it 
after  a  long  siege,  he  caused  the  outer  moat  to 
be  filled  up  lest  the  place  should  ever  again  fall 
into  the  hands  of  his  enemies.  But  in  his  own 

74 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

capital  of  Yedo  he  built  a  castle  on  a  far  grander 
scale  than  that  of  Hidoyoshi,  though  its  greater 
size  rendered  it  less  defensible.  Around  it 
stretched  a  triple  line  of  moats,  the  outermost 
measuring  nine  and  a  half  miles  in  length,  the 
innermost  one  and  a  half,  their  scarps  con- 
structed with  blocks  of  granite  nearly  as  colossal 
as  those  of  the  Osaka  stronghold,  though  in  the 
case  of  the  Yedo  fortification  every  stone  had  to 
be  carried  hundreds  of  miles  over  sea.  The  gates, 
the  parapets,  the  towers,  and  all  the  accessories 
were  proportionately  as  huge  as  those  at  Osaka, 
and  the  whole  structure  constituted  one  of  the 
most  stupendous  works  ever  undertaken,  not 
excepting  even  the  pyramids  of  Egypt.  There 
is  not  to  be  found  elsewhere  a  more  striking 
monument  of  military  power,  nor  can  any  one 
considering  such  a  work,  as  well  as  its  immediate 
predecessor,  the  Taiko's  stronghold  at  Osaka,  and 
its  numerous  contemporaries  of  lesser  but  still 
striking  proportions  in  the  principal  fiefs,  refuse 
to  credit  the  Japanese  with  capacity  for  large 
conceptions  and  competence  to  carry  them  into 
practice. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  the  Yedo  fortress 
that  commands  attention.  Above  the  immense 
masses  of  masonry  rose  lofty  banks  of  earth,  their 
slopes  turfed  with  fine  Korean  grass,  and  their 
summits  planted  with  pine-trees,  trained,  year 
after  year,  to  stretch  evergreen  arms  towards 
the  spacious  moats.  These  moats  varied  in  width 

75 


JAPAN 

from  one  hundred  and  seventy  yards  to  twenty- 
two,  and  through  them  flowed  broad  sheets  of 
water,  reaching  the  city  by  cunningly  planned 
aqueducts  from  a  river  twenty  miles  distant ; 
aqueducts  which,  as  evidence  of  Japanese  engi- 
neering skill,  unassisted  by  foreign  science,  are 
scarcely  less  remarkable  than  the  castle  itself.  In 
this  combination  we  have  an  example  of  the 
homage  to  the  beautiful  that  holds  every  Japan- 
nese  a  worshipper  at  Nature's  shrine  even  when 
he  seems  to  rely  most  implicitly  on  his  own 
resources  of  brain  and  muscle.  Placid  lakes  lap- 
ping the  feet  of  stupendous  battlements ;  noble 
pines  bending  over  their  own  graceful  reflections 
in  still  waters;  long  stretches  of  velvety  sward 
making  a  perpetual  presence  of  rustic  freshness 
among  the  dust  and  moil  of  city  life;  flocks  of 
soft-plumaged  wild-fowl  placidly  sailing  in  the 
moats  or  sunning  themselves  on  the  banks,  care- 
less of  the  tumult  and  din  of  the  streets  over- 
head ;  sheets  of  lotus-bloom  glowing  in  the 
shadow  of  grim  counterscarps  —  where  but  in 
Japan  can  be  found  so  deliberate  and  so  success- 
ful an  effort  to  convert  the  frowns  of  a  fortress 
into  the  smiles  of  a  garden  ?  This  castle  of  the 
Tokugawa  Regents  is  a  portion  of  the  alphabet 
by  which  Japanese  character  may  be  read.  Hidden 
beneath  a  passion  for  everything  graceful  and 
refined,  there  is  a  strong  yearning  for  the  pageant 
of  war  and  for  the  dash  of  deadly  onset,  and  just 
as  the  Shogun  sought  to  display  before  the  eyes 

76 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

of  the  citizens  of  his  capital  a  charming  picture 
of  gentle  peace,  though  its  setting  was  a  frame- 
work of  vast  military  preparation,  so  the  Japanese 
of  every  era  has  loved  to  turn  from  the  fencing- 
school  to  the  arbour,  from  the  field  of  battle  to 
the  society  of  the  rockery  and  the  cascade,  delight- 
ing in  the  perils  and  struggles  of  the  one  as  much 
as  he  admires  the  grace  and  repose  of  the  other. 

All  the  great  captains  of  the  later  military 
epoch,  from  Oda  Nobunaga  downward,  sought 
to  combine  the  artistic  beauties  hitherto  peculiar 
to  the  "  illustrious  mansions  "  of  Kyoto  with  the 
strength  and  solidity  demanded  by  the  new  weapons 
and  greatly  increased  organisations  of  the  era.  It 
is,  indeed,  a  very  remarkable  fact  that  pan  passu 
with  the  growth  of  strategical  ability,  with  the 
improvement  of  tactical  methods,  and  with  the 
development  of  military  resources,  the  rude  aus- 
terity of  life  affected  by  earlier  warriors  lost  its 
value,  and  people  ceased  to  count  it  incongruous 
that  a  leader  of  soldiers  should  be  a  lover  of  art. 
Possibly  something  of  the  change  is  attributable 
to  the  great  strides  made  by  art  itself,  both  pic- 
torial and  applied,  from  the  fourteenth  century  to 
the  seventeenth.  The  painter,  the  sculptor,  the 
worker  in  metals,  the  lacquerer,  the  keramist,  all 
ascended  to  a  plane  not  higher,  perhaps,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  nobility  of  ideal,  than  that  occu- 
pied by  the  glyptic  artists  of  the  seventh  and 
eighth  centuries,  and  the  pictorial  artists  of  the 
ninth,  but  certainly  a  plane  of  far  greater  achieve- 

77 


JAPAN 

ment  in  a  generally  decorative  sense.  Yet  when 
the  history  of  all  technical  progress  in  Japan  is 
examined,  the  student  finds  that  the  motive  im- 
pulse, though  its  inception  may  not  be  plainly  due 
to  aristocratic  or  official  patronage,  certainly  de- 
rives its  lasting  strength  from  that  source,  and  it 
is  impossible  to  doubt  that  the  same  principle 
applied  to  art  in  the  Military  epoch.  The  great 
academicians  of  Tosa,  Sesshiu,  and  Kano;  the 
grand  carvers  of  the  later  Nara ;  the  Jingoro 
schools  ;  the  Goto  and  the  Myochin  masters  who 
chiselled  in  metal  as  men  paint  on  canvas;  the 
potters  of  Seto,  Bizen,  Imari,  and  Kyoto ;  the 
lacquerers  who,  from  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  began  to  make  the  departure  that  ulti- 
mately led  to  such  incomparable  results,  would 
never  have  risen  to  fame  had  not  the  nation's 
political  and  military  leaders  taken  them  by  the 
hand.  To  Oda  Nobunaga,  indeed,  is  commonly 
attributed  the  first  employment  of  decorative  wood- 
carving  in  religious  edifices.  He  is  said  to  have 
caused  figures  of  dragons  to  be  chiselled  on  the 
pillars  of  a  Buddhist  pagoda  within  the  precincts  of 
a  magnificent  mansion  erected  by  him  at  Azuchi 
in  Omi,  and  from  that  time  annalists  are  wont  to 
date  the  beginning  of  this  application  of  glyptic 
art  to  the  ornamentation  of  interiors.  But  though 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  to  the  patronage 
of  Nobunaga,  Hideyoshi,  and  lyeyasu,  must  be 
attributed  such  a  development  and  employment 
of  wood-carving  as  enriched  Japan  with  master- 

78 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

pieces  unsurpassed  by  any  cognate  products  of  ar- 
tistic genius  the  world  over,  a  difficulty  presented 
itself  with  regard  to  the  theory  that  this  branch 
of  applied  art  owed  its  inception  to  Oda  Nobunaga. 
His  castle  at  Azuchi  was  built  in  1576;  in  1585 
Hideyoshi  constructed  the  celebrated  "Palace  of 
Pleasure"  at  Momoyama,  and  in  1592  the  Shin 
sect  built  the  temple  Nishi  Hongwan-ji  in  Kyoto. 
It  will  be  observed  that  the  erection  of  Hideyoshi's 
palace  was  separated  from  that  of  Oda's  by  only 
nine  years,  and  that  the  interval  between  the  latter 
event  and  the  building  of  the  Hongwan  temple 
was  seven  years.  The  "Palace  of  Pleasure"  was 
pulled  down  by  order  of  Hideyoshi  within  a  few 
years  of  its  completion.  Nothing  certain,  there- 
fore, can  be  said  about  its  details.  But  portions 
of  it  were  distributed  among  the  "illustrious 
mansions"  of  Kyoto,  and  these  relics  indicate 
that  wood-carving  of  the  highest  type  was  em- 
ployed in  its  decoration.  A  two-leaved  gate, 
called  the  "  day-long  portal,"  because  a  whole 
day  might  be  spent  studying  its  beauties,  now 
stands  at  the  Nishi  Hongwan  temple,  whither 
it  was  brought  from  Momoyama.  It  is  a  noble 
specimen  of  carving,  showing  the  highest  skill  in 
chiselling  a  jour  and  in  relief.  The  subject  is  an 
incident  from  Chinese  history,  and  the  carver  had 
told  the  story  on  each  side  of  the  panels  as  though 
they  were  leaves  of  an  album.1  It  is  scarcely  a 
reasonable  hypothesis  that  an  art  which  had  its 

1  See  Appendix,  note  13. 

79 


JAPAN 

commencement  in  1576  attained  such  a  degree 
of  development  in  1585.  As  to  the  Hongwan 
temple  itself,  magnificent  masterpieces  of  carving 
are  to  be  seen  in  its  ventilating  panels  (ramma), 
the  subjects  being  tree  peonies,  angels,  wild  geese, 
phcenixes,  cranes,  flying  squirrels,  and  grapes.  The 
celebrated  mausolea  of  the  Tokugawa  nobles  in 
Tokyo  and  Nikko  show  greater  profusion  of 
glyptic  ornamentation,  but  have  nothing  of  finer 
quality  than  the  chiselling  of  the  ramma  in  the 
Kyoto  temple.  Thus  the  Oda  Nobunaga  theory 
involves  the  conclusion  that  in  the  short  space  of 
sixteen  years  the  application  of  glyptic  art  to  in- 
terior decoration  was  carried  from  its  genesis  to  its 
zenith.  Naturally  the  disposition  is  to  reject  such 
a  theory ;  but  then  a  second  difficulty  is  encoun- 
tered, namely,  that  certainly  no  specimen  of  such 
work  is  known  to  have  existed  prior  to  the 
construction  of  the  Azuchi  Castle.  It  appears, 
therefore,  that  there  is  here  another  case  of  the 
extraordinarily  rapid  development  already  noticed 
with  regard  to  military  architecture.  In  forty 
years  the  Japanese  passed  from  flimsy  wooden 
edifices  to  solid  stone  structures  of  colossal  di- 
mensions, and  in  twenty  they  added  to  their 
scheme  of  interior  decoration  an  application  of 
glyptic  art  which  has  never  been  surpassed  any- 
where. There  can  be  no  question  of  a  historical 
lacuna  in  the  case  of  military  architecture,  since 
the  cause  of  the  new  departure  can  be  fixed  with 
absolute  accuracy,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  sus- 

80 


SAMURAI    OF    KAMAKURA    1'ERIOD. 

(Hunting  Costume-) 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

pect  any  great  historical  lacuna  in  this  other  case 
of  architectural  decoration. 

It  would  be  proper  at  this  place  to  supplement 
previous  references  to  the  development  of  temple 
architecture,  but  there  has  in  truth  been  very 
little  architectural  development  in  these  edifices, 
and  it  will  not  be  improper  to  discuss  them  in 
general  terms.  The  Japanese  themselves  are 
wont  to  speak  of  four  stages  of  sacred  architec- 
ture ;  that  of  the  Suiko  era,  that  of  the  Fujiwara 
era,  that  of  the  Momoyama  era,  and  that  of  the 
Tokugawa  era,  —  terms  which  will  become  more 
intelligible  to  a  foreign  reader  if  they  are  replaced 
by  "ancient  Buddhist  epoch,"  "  Nara  epoch," 
"  Kyoto  epoch,"  and  "  Tokyo  epoch."  The 
buildings  chosen  as  illustrative  of  these  stages  are, 
respectively,  the  Hvryu-ji,  the  Byvdo-in,  the 
Hongwan-ji,  and  the  mausolea  of  Shiba  and 
Nikko.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that  a  close 
examination  of  these  structures  fully  bears  out 
the  dictum  of  Mr.  J.  Conder,  the  greatest  living 
authority  on  Japanese  architecture,  that  "  from 
a  time  somewhat  ulterior  to  the  introduction 
of  the  Buddhist  style  until  now,  no  important 
development  or  modification  in  the  constructive 
art  of  temple  building  has  taken  place,  the  chief 
change  being  decorative,  caused  by  the  growth 
of  the  decorative  arts."  It  is  true  that  in  the 
oldest  of  all  these  temples  —  the  Horyu-ji  built 
in  607  A.  D.  —  the  wooden  columns  show  very 
marked  swelling,  and  this  entasis  has  been  regarded 

VOL.    II. 6  I 


JAPAN 

as  a  proof  of  Grecian  affinities.  But  the  infer- 
ence seems  to  have  been  hastily  drawn ;  for 
whereas  there  are  innumerable  proofs  that  the 
principle  of  entasis  was  fully  understood  by  the 
Japanese,  and  that  they  used  it  intelligently  as 
a  device  to  correct  the  hollow  appearance  which 
the  sides  of  high  pillars  or  long  horizontal  beams 
would  present  if  perfectly  straight,  the  so-called 
entasis  of  the  Horyu-ji  columns  is  exaggerated  to 
such  a  degree  that  they  have  distinctly  bellied 
outlines.  They  do  not,  in  fact,  show  entasis  at 
all,  but  are  intentionally  convex.  It  is  possible, 
of  course,  that  the  idea  of  entasis  may  have  been 
derived  by  the  Japanese  from  Greece  via  India, 
but  the  practical  application  of  it  is  seen  in  the 
work  of  later  architects,  not  in  the  Horyu-ji 
columns,  and  there  is  no  solid  reason  to  suppose 
that  the  Japanese  borrowed  the  principle  at  all 
and  did  not  discover  it  by  the  exercise  of  their 
own  remarkably  accurate  observation. 

Nothing  hitherto  written  on  the  subject  of 
Japanese  sacred  architecture  can  be  compared,  in 
point  of  accuracy  of  observation  and  technical 
knowledge,  with  the  accounts  embodied  in  essays 
contributed  by  Mr.  J.  Conder  to  the  Royal  In- 
stitute of  British  Architects.  As  these  essays  are 
not  accessible  to  the  general  reader,  the  follow- 
ing extracts  may  be  quoted  here  :  — 

The  popular  temples  of  Japan  have  generally  one 
open  enclosure  with  a  grand  two-storeyed  gateway, 
continually  left  open  to  the  public.  A  water-basin  and 

82 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

belfry  are  seldom  omitted,  but  a  pagoda  is  often 
wanting  (these  will  be  presently  spoken  of).  The 
principal  building,  called  the  Honden,  contains  in  some 
cases  a  large  bronze  image,  and  in  some  cases  statuettes 
of  wood  or  metal  encased  in  small  shrines,  and  revealed 
only  on  special  occasions.  In  many  temples  there 
exist  two  Honden  side  by  side,  one  for  the  founder  and 
one  for  the  deity,  or  one  for  each  of  two  separately 
adored  deities.  This  principal  sanctuary  is  generally 
an  oblong  building  raised  some  four  feet  from  the 
ground.  In  some  cases  there  are  an  inner  and  an 
outer  sanctuary,  separated  by  an  interval  room ;  in 
others  the  two  sanctuaries  are  separated  only  by  a  screen 
or  blind,  the  separation  being  sometimes  emphasised  by 
a  different  treatment  of  the  ceilings  of  the  two.  These 
buildings  vary  greatly  in  size,  there  being  in  the  larger 
temples  an  interior  peristyle  —  or  other  arrangement 

c          1  r  c  •  r 

or  columns,  orten  or  great  size,  to  support  the  roof 
—  forming  an  ambulatory  or  aisle  round  the  oratory, 
or  sometimes  round  three  sides  of  it,  leaving  the  fourth 
to  be  occupied  by  the  sanctuary  and  secondary  tem- 
ples on  either  side.  The  temple  Todai-ji  at  Nara, 
which  contains  a  celebrated  bronze  image  of  Buddha 
fifty-three  feet  high,  measures  two  hundred  and  ninety 
feet  long,  one  hundred  and  seventy  feet  wide,  and  one 
hundred  and  fifty-six  feet  high,  being  a  two-storeyed 
building.  The  temple  of  Miyo-jin  in  Tokyo  measures 
sixty-six  feet  by  twenty-seven  feet  high  by  forty  feet  to 
the  ridge. 

The  building  is  invariably  surrounded  by  a  raised 
gallery,  reached  by  a  flight  of  steps  in  the  centre  of  the 
approach  front,  the  balustrade  of  which  is  a  continua- 
tion of  the  gallery  railing.  This  gallery  is  sometimes 
supported  upon  a  deep  system  of  bracketing,  corbelled 
out  from  the  feet  of  the  main  pillars.  Within  this 
raised  gallery,  which  is  sheltered  by  the  over-sailing 

83 


JAPAN 

eaves,  there  is,  in  the  larger  temples,  a  columned  loggia 
passing  round  the  two  sides  and  the  front  of  the  build- 
ing, or,  in  some  cases,  placed  on  the  fa9ade  only.  The 
ceilings  of  the  loggias  are  generally  sloping,  with  richly 
carved  roof  timbers  showing  below  at  intervals ;  and 
quaintly  carved  braces  connect  the  outer  pillars  with 
the  main  posts  of  the  building.  Some  temples  are  to 
be  seen  in  which  the  ceiling  of  the  loggia  is  boarded 
flat  and  decorated  with  huge  paintings  of  dragons  in 
black  and  gold.  The  intercolumniation  is  regulated 
by  a  standard  of  about  six  or  seven  feet,  .  .  .  and  the 
general  result  of  the  treatment  £of  columns,  wall  posts, 
etc.]  is  that  the  whole  mural  space,  not  filled  in  with 
doors  or  windows,  is  divided  into  regular  oblong  panels, 
which  sometimes  receive  plaster,  sometimes  boarding, 
and  sometimes  rich  framework  and  carving  or  painted 
panels.  Diagonal  bracing  or  strutting  is  nowhere  to 
be  found,  and  in  many  cases  mortises  and  other  joints 
are  such  as  to  very  materially  weaken  the  timbers  at 
their  points  of  connection.  In  my  opinion  it  is  only 
the  immense  weight  of  the  roofs  and  their  heavy  pro- 
jections which  prevents  a  collapse  of  some  of  these 
structures  in  high  winds.  The  principal  fa9ade  of  the 
temple  is  filled  in  one,  two,  or  three  compartments  with 
hinged  doors,  variously  ornamented  and  folding  out- 
wards, sometimes  in  double  folds.  From  these  door- 
ways, generally  left  open,  the  interior  light  is  princi- 
pally obtained,  windows,  as  we  generally  understand 
the  term,  being  rare.  In  some  of  the  more  important 
buildings,  however,  a  method  is  followed  of  filling  in 
the  chief  compartments  of  the  front  and  sides  with 
large  movable  latticed  shutters  in  two  halves,  the  upper 
half  being  hinged  at  the  top  so  that  it  can  be  raised  and 
attached  on  the  outside  to  metal  rods  hung  from  the 
eaves.  ...  A  striking  peculiarity  of  all  Japanese 
buildings  is  that  direct  light  from  the  sky  is  rarely 

84 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

obtained,  owing  to  the  lowness  of  the  openings  and  the 
great  projection  of  the  eaves.  .  .  .  An  elaborate  cor- 
nice of  wooden  bracketing  crowns  the  wall,  forming 
one  of  the  principal  ornaments  of  the  building.  The 
bracketing  is  arranged  in  groups  placed  immediately 
over  the  pillars  and  at  certain  intermediate  intervals, 
the  intervening  spaces  being  variously  decorated.  .  .  . 
The  whole  disposition  of  pillars,  posts,  brackets,  and 
rafters  is  harmonically  arranged  according  to  some  meas- 
ure of  the  standard  of  length.  ...  A  very  important 
feature  of  the  fa$ade  is  the  portico  or  porch-way,  which 
covers  the  principal  steps  and  is  generally  formed  by  pro- 
ducing the  central  portion  of  the  main  roof  over  the 
steps  and  supporting  such  projection  upon  isolated 
wooden  pillars  braced  together  near  the  top  with  hori- 
zontal ties,  curved,  moulded,  and  otherwise  fantastically 
decorated.  Above  these  ties  are  the  cornice  brackets 
and  beams,  corresponding  in  general  design  to  the  cor- 
nice of  the  walls,  and  the  intermediate  space  is  filled 
with  open  carvings  of  dragons  or  other  characteristic 
forms.  .  .  . 

The  forms  of  roof  are  various,  but  mostly  they  com- 
mence in  a  steep  slope  at  the  top,  gradually  flattening 
towards  the  eaves  so  as  to  produce  a  slightly  concave 
appearance,  this  concavity  being  rendered  more  em- 
phatic by  the  tilt  which  is  given  to  the  eaves  at  the 
four  corners.  .  .  .  The  appearance  of  the  ends  of  the 
roofs  is  half  hip,  half  gable.  Heavy  ribs  of  tile-cresting 
with  large  terminals  are  carried  along  the  ridge,  hip, 
and  along  the  slope  of  the  gable.  The  result  of  the 
whole  is  very  picturesque,  and  has  the  advantage 
of  looking  equally  satisfactory  from  any  point  of 
view.  .  .  . 

The  interior  arrangement  of  wall  columns,  horizontal 
beams,  and  cornice  bracketing  corresponds  with  that  on 
the  outside.  .  .  .  The  ceiling  is  invariably  boarded, 

85 


JAPAN 

and  subdivided  by  ribs  into  small  rectangular  coffers ; 
sometimes  painting  is  introduced  into  these  panels,  and 
lacquer  and  metal  clasps  added  to  the  ribs.  When  the 
temple  is  of  very  large  dimensions,  an  interior  peristyle 
of  pillars  is  introduced  to  assist  in  supporting  the  roof, 
and  in  such  cases  each  pillar  carries  profuse  bracketing 
corresponding  to  that  of  the  cornice.  The  construc- 
tion of  the  framework  of  the  Japanese  roof  is  such  that 
the  weights  all  act  vertically ;  there  is  no  thrust  on 
the  outer  walls,  and  every  available  point  of  the  in- 
terior is  used  as  a  means  of  support.  .  .  .  The  floor 
is  partly  boarded  and  partly  matted.  The  shrines, 
altars,  and  oblatory  tables  are  placed  at  the  back  in 
the  centre,  and  there  are  often  other  secondary  shrines 
at  the  sides.  Drums  and  bronze  gongs  are  among 
the  furniture  which  is  always  to  be  found  in  these 
temples.  In  those  of  the  best  class  the  floors  of  the 
gallery  and  of  the  central  portion  of  the  main  build- 
ing from  entrance  to  altar  are  richly  lacquered ;  in 
those  of  inferior  class  they  are  merely  polished  by 
continual  rubbing. 

These  details,  if  somewhat  technical,  are  thor- 
oughly useful  guides  to  the  principal  features  of 
temple  architecture  in  Japan.  The  mausolea 
are  differently  planned.  They  consist  of  three 
buildings  en  suite:  an  oratory,  flanked  on  both 
sides  by  an  antechamber ;  an  interval  room,  and 
a  sanctuary.  There  are  two  enclosures,  the  outer 
surrounded  by  a  belt  of  cloisters,  and  the  general 
scheme  of  decoration  is  on  a  much  more  elabo- 
rate and  magnificent  scale  than  that  of  the 
temples.  These  mausolea  belong  properly  to  a 
later  epoch,  that  of  Yedo,  and  are  to  be  seen  in 

86 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

perfection  at  Shiba  in  Tokyo  and  at  Nikko, 
where  the  bodies  of  the  Tokugawa  Sfioguns  are 
interred.  They  are  mentioned  here,  however, 
in  order  to  avoid  needless  division.  It  may 
truly  be  said  of  them  that  they  display  Japanese 
decorative  art  in  its  most  profuse  and  splendid 
stage. 

The  oldest  form  of  architectural  decoration  in 
Japan  was  mural  painting.  It  is  seen  in  the 
temple  Horyu-ji,  the  walls  of  which  are  covered 
with  nobly  executed  paintings  of  Buddhist  sub- 
jects, traditionally  ascribed  to  a  sculptor  of 
Chinese  origin  and  to  a  Korean  priest.  Tradi- 
tion may  be  right  in  this  instance,  but  it  is  a 
curious  fact  that  no  mural  decoration  of  even 
approximate  quality  is  to  be  seen  in  any  part  of 
China  or  Korea.  It  is  also  noteworthy  that 
although  mural  painting  continued  to  be  a  fea- 
ture of  temple  decoration  from  the  seventh  cen- 
tury through  all  ages,  the  artists  never  chose 
essentially  religious  motives  —  unless  the  figures 
of  Ten-nin,  or  angels,  may  be  so  regarded  —  for 
the  adornment  of  sacred  edifices  subsequent  to 
Horyu-ji.  Their  favourite  subjects  were  mythi- 
cal animals  and  birds  —  the  Dog  of  Fo,  the 
Kylin,  and  the  Phoenix,  —  or  flowers,  especially 
the  lotus  and  the  peony,  and  they  generally  chose 
a  gold  ground.  Broadly  speaking,  the  decoration 
may  be  divided  into  monochromatic  and  poly- 
chromatic. The  former  obeys  the  Shinto  canons. 
It  is  seen  in  temples  constructed  of  pure  white, 

87 


JAPAN 

knotless  pine,  having  elaborately  chiselled  and 
embossed  metal  (gilt  brass)  caps,  sockets,  and 
bands  applied  to  the  ends  of  projecting  timbers, 
to  the  joints  of  pillars  and  beams,  to  the  corners 
of  frames  (door  and  panel),  and  to  the  bases  and 
necks  of  posts.  The  effect  is  well  described  by 
Mr.  Conder  as  "  an  appearance  of  pale,  ashen 
grey  touched  up  richly  with  gold."  In  the 
monochromatic  class  may  also  be  included  struc- 
tures coloured  outside  with  vermilion  red,  har- 
monising beautifully  with  the  green  woods  in 
which  the  temple  stands.  The  polychromatic 
class  includes  the  great  majority  of  the  temples 
and  nearly  all  the  mausolea.  Externally,  the 
colour  commences  "  with  the  lintels  or  ties  near 
the  top  of  the  posts  or  pillars.  From  this  height 
the  different  beams  and  brackets,  together  with 
the  flat  spaces  and  raised  carvings  between,  are 
diapered,  arabesqued  and  variously  picked  out  in 
bright  colours  and  gilding.  Such  treatment  im- 
parts a  light  elegance  to  the  otherwise  ponderous 
eaves  of  Japanese  temple  buildings,  and  the  deep 
sun-shadows  beneath  the  massive  projections  assist 
in  subduing  and  harmonising  the  bold  contrast 
of  colour  employed.  The  decorator  uses  fear- 
lessly the  greatest  variety  of  colours  in  juxtaposi- 
tion, but  generally  separates  adjoining  tints  by 
means  of  a  white  or  gold  line"  (Conder).  In- 
ternally, the  scheme  may  be  broadly  described  as 
mural  paintings  on  a  gold  ground ;  carved  panels, 
solid  or  pierced,  the  carving  heavily  gilt  and 

88    - 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

sometimes  picked  out  with  various  colours ; 
coffered  ceilings  with  coved  cornices,  the  coffer 
of  the  ceiling  and  the  carved  panels  of  the  cov- 
ing filled  with  decorations  in  colour  or  in  gold 
lacquer,  pillars  with  decoration  of  embroidered 
drapery,  and  beams,  brackets,  etc.  coloured  much 
on  the  same  principle  as  the  external  members. 
Occasionally  the  ceiling  is  not  coffered,  but  pre- 
sents a  flat  surface  carrying  a  large  painting  of 
angels,  dragons,  phoenixes,  or  Dogs  of  Fo.  A 
celebrated  example  of  this  treatment  is  to  be 
seen  at  Nanzen-ji  in  Kyoto,  where  a  ceiling, 
sixteen  hundred  square  feet  in  area,  carries  a 
painting  of  a  colossal  dragon  in  black  and 
gold. 

It  would  be  quite  useless,  of  course,  to  attempt 
any  detailed  description  of  Japanese  temple  decora- 
tion in  these  volumes.  A  special  work  elaborately 
illustrated  would  be  necessary.  The  general  effect 
is  at  once  gorgeous  and  delicate,  lacking,  how- 
ever, in  massiveness  and  grandeur.  Apart  from  the 
main  structure  there  are  several  objects  of  beauty 
and  interest :  the  sepulchres  of  the  mausolea  ;  the 
gateways,  which  Japanese  architects  have  made 
an  object  of  extraordinary  study ;  the  font-sheds, 
with  their  basins  of  bronze  or  granite ; l  the  bel- 
fries ;  the  exquisitely  toned  bells  they  contain ; 
the  pillar-lanterns  of  stone  or  bronze ;  the  sculp- 
tured images  that  flank  the  gates ;  and  the 
pagodas.2  The  charm  of  the  whole  is  greatly 

1  See  Appendix,  note  14.  a  See  Appendix,  note  15. 


JAPAN 

enhanced  by  the  features  of  the  surrounding  land- 
scape and  the  skilfully  planned  approaches,  which 
are  matters  of  no  less  importance  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Japanese  designer  than  the  structure  itself 
and  its  decoration. 


90 


Chapter  III 


MANNERS  AND   CUSTOMS   OF  THE 
MILITARY   EPOCH   (Continued) 


1 


BURNING  to  the  costumes  of  the  era, 
we  find  conservatism  and  change  side 
by  side.  One  of  the  vagaries  of  fashion 
was  a  rule  that  the  skirt  of  an  official's 
upper  garment  should  be  long  in  proportion  to 
his  rank.  In  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury it  was  considered  de  rigueur  that  a  minister 
of  State  should  have  an  eight-foot  train  ;  a  senior 
councillor,  seven  feet ;  a  junior  councillor,  six 
feet ;  and  so  on  down  to  officials  lower  than  the 
fourth  grade  who  had  to  content  themselves  with 
four  feet.  At  the  zenith  of  this  fashion  a  prime 
minister  might  be  seen  dragging  after  him  a  train 
twelve  feet  long  and  managing  it  with  grace  and 
address  acquired  by  arduous  practice.  Military  \ 
men,  however,  did  not  obey  this  monstrous  cus- 
torn,  prototype  of  the  modern  Occidental  Draw- 
ing-room. The  Court  nobles  and  civil  officials 
enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  it,  —  the  men  who,  deem- 
ing themselves  best  attired  when  they  resembled 
women  most  closely,  shaved  their  eyebrows,  ; 

91 


JAPAN 

painted  their  cheeks,  and  blackened  their  teeth  to 
achieve  the  likeness. 

/^It  was  in  this  period  that  the  habit  of  shaving 
the  crown  of  the  head  came  into  vogue.  The 
statement  does  not  apply  to  persons  adopting  the 
priesthood  and  receiving  the  tonsure  as  a  mark 
of  their  retirement  from  secular  life,  but  to  the 
people  at  large.  Court  nobles  and  civil  officials, 
however,  did  not  in  this  epoch  adopt  the  crown- 
shaving  habit.  They  wore  their  hair  long,  and 
[gathered  it  in  a  bunch  with  the  ends  evenly 
I  clipped,  —  the  "  tea-switch  style,"  as  they  called 
/  it,  because  of  its  resemblance  to  the  bamboo  mixer 
\ised  for  stirring  the  powdered-tea  beverage.  This 
queue  was  bound  with  a  strand  of  twisted  paper, 
the  colour  of  the  paper  being  determined  by  the 
rank  of  the  wearer.  The  S/^w/z  wore  a  vermil- 
ion strand  ;  nobles  and  officials  entitled  to  enter 
the  audience  hall  in  the  Palace,  employed  purple, 
and  officials  not  possessing  that  privilege,  white. 
It  was  the  military  men  that  inaugurated  the 
custom  of  shaving  the  crown,  not  for  the  sake  of 
appearance,  but  because  the  weight  and  heat  of 
the  helmet  suggested  removal  of  the  hair.  At 
first  they  confined  themselves  to  thinning  the 
hair  over  the  temples  and  tasselling  the  portion 
of  it  that  remained.  Next  they  shaved  the 
crown,  and,  when  not  in  armour,  wore  false  hair 
arranged  so  as  to  hang  in  short  locks  over  the 
forehead.  Then,  finally,  the  bald  crown  came 
to  be  an  honoured  mark  of  the  soldier,  and  was 

92 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

frankly  exposed,  the  back  hair  being  tied  in  a 
queue,  and  brought  forward  so  as  to  divide  the 
crown  equally.  This  style  afterwards  came  into 
universal  vogue,  soldier  and  civilian,  prince 
and  peasant  alike  affecting  it.  Connected  with 
this  is  a  superstition  characteristic  of  the  age. 
A  belief  had  prevailed  from  time  immemorial 
that  if  a  man  bathed  on  a  particular  day  in  the 
year,  without ,  reciting  an  incantation  to  certain 
demons,  he  would  lose  all  his  hair.  The  inaus- 
picious day  being  called  gesshiki  in  the  almanac, 
the  soldier  gave  that  name  to  a  wooden  instru- 
ment used  for  thinning  his  locks. 

Beards  and  mustaches  were  grown  freely,  be- 
ing regarded  as  manly  embellishments.  To  be 
without  a  good  provision  of  hair  on  the  face  gave 
a  soldier  much  concern.  He  lamented  over  him- 
self as  a  "  defective  being  "  or  a  "  female  man  ;  " 
and  there  is  on  record  a  case  of  a  samurai  of 
Odawara  who  so  bitterly  resented  a  joking  allu- 
sion to  his  beardlessness,  that  he  fell,  sword  in 
hand,  upon  the  joker,  and  both  perished.  Side- 
whiskers  were  much  affected,  because  the  de- 
mon-slayer Shoki  had  always  been  artistically 
represented  with  such  ornaments,  which  conse- 
quently had  the  honour  of  being  called  Shoki- 
hige.  A  chin-beard  alone,  however,  was  con- 
demned as  imparting  a  craven  aspect.  Great 
veneration  attached  to  a  long  white  beard.  Its 
fortunate  possessor  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  being 
placed  socially  above  every  one  else,  and  was  desig- 

93 


JAPAN 

nated  Shira-hige  Miyo-jin,  or  the  "  white-bearded 
deity.'*  A  not  less  esteemed  adornment  was  a 
battle-scar.  In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury the  great  captain  Hojo  Ujiyasu  was  reputed 
to  have  slain  thirty  strong  warriors  with  his  own 
blade.  He  had  seven  sword  wounds  on  his  body 
and  one  on  his  face,  and  from  that  time  a  "  fine- 
deed  scar  "  on  the  visage  went  by  the  name  of 
an  "  Ujiyasu  slash." 

Staining  the  teeth  black,  a  habit  hitherto  con- 
fined to  Court  nobles  and  officials  residing  in 
Kyoto,  was  universally  adopted  by  the  soldier 
class  after  it  had  been  carried  from  the  Imperial 
city  to  the  military  capital  (Kamakura)  by  the 
Hojo  family.  A  man  with  white  teeth  was 
derided,  and  heads  taken  in  battle  counted  for 
little  unless  they  had  black  teeth. 

Women  continued  to  wear  their  hair  long,  as 
in  the  Heian  epoch.  They  added  artificial  hair 
if  nature  had  not  been  kind  to  them.  When  a 
lady  of  rank  walked  abroad,  her  long  tresses  were 
gathered  into  a  box  which  an  attendant  carried, 
following  behind ;  and  when  she  seated  herself, 
it  was  the  attendant's  duty  to  spread  the  hair 
symmetrically  on  the  ground  like  a  skirt.  A 
lady  lacking  an  attendant  festooned  her  hair  over 
the  right  shoulder,  using  paper  to  tie  up  the  ends. 
Sometimes  a  woman  "banged"  her  hair  in  a  trip- 
let of  loops ;  and  girls  in  their  teens  had  a  pretty 
fashion  of  wearing  it  in  three  clearly  distinguished 
lengths,  —  a  short  fringe  over  the  forehead,  two 

94 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

cascades  falling  below  the  shoulders,  and  a  long 
lock  behind.  Labouring  women  adopted  a  much 
simpler  style.  They  bound  the  head  with  a 
gracefully  folded  cloth,  gathering  and  knotting 
the  hair  under  this  kerchief.  The  process  of 
enveloping  the  head  in  such  a  fashion  was  devel- 
oped into  a  high  art.  In  a  moment  a  woman 
could  convert  the  little  square  of  cotton  cloth 
that  she  carried  by  way  of  a  towel,  into  a  coiffure 
of  the  daintiest  and  jauntiest  description.  Pro- 
fessionals, as  physicians,  dancers,  singers,  and 
actors,  razed  the  head  completely,  after  the  man- 
ner of  Buddhist  friars. 

Speaking  broadly,  the  costumes  of  the  people 
now  began  to  approximate  to  the  style  repre- 
sented in  the  genre  pictures  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Women  of  the  upper  classes  continued 
to  wear  loose  trousers,  but  in  the  dress  of  the 
lower  classes,  and  in  the  toilet  of  unmarried  girls, 
skirted  robes  made  their  appearance.  The  girdle 
(obi}  of  later  days,  an  essentially  characteristic 
feature  of  Japanese  costume  as  the  Occident 
knows  it,  had  not  yet  come  into  use.  Ladies, 
indoors,  tied  a  narrow  belt  of  silk  round  the 
waist,  knotting  it  in  front  and  treating  it  essen- 
tially as  a  mere  fastener.  Above  it  they  wore  a 
long,  flowing  robe,  reaching  from  the  neck  to 
the  heels,  with  voluminous  sleeves.  This  robe, 
in  the  case  of  aristocratic  dames,  was  of  mag- 
nificent quality,  sometimes  of  rich  brocade,  some- 
times of  elaborately  embroidered  silk  or  satin. 

95 


JAPAN 

Towards  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century  girls 
began  to  tie  several  plies  of  silk  cord  round  the 
waist,  knotting  it  in  graceful  loops  behind,  and 
letting  the  ends  hang  low.  This  was  the  obi  in 
embryo.  Not  until  comparatively  recent  times, 
however,  did  aristocratic  ladies  overcome  their 
objection  to  converting  the  girdle  into  a  conspic- 
uous article  of  apparel.  In  fact,  up  to  the  end  of 
the  Military  epoch,  namely,  the  close  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  the  girdle  gave  no  earnest  of  the 
wealth  of  care  and  taste  ultimately  lavished  on  it. 
Perhaps  the  most  noteworthy  innovation  of 
the  epoch  was  the  kami-shimo  ("  upper  and 
lower") ;  a  very  simple  costume,  consisting  of  an 
upper  garment  without  sleeves  or  plaits  —  a  kind 
of  square-shouldered  waistcoat  —  and  a  lower  in 
the  form  of  straight-legged,  vertically  plaited 
trousers,  having  a  broad  waistband  attached. 
The  end  of  the  kami  was  confined  within  the 
waistband  of  the  shimo,  and  the  two,  worn  above 
the  ordinary  costume,  produced  a  marked  effect 
of  decorous  stiffness  and  primness.  They  ulti- 
mately became  the  costume  of  ceremony  for  all 
men  of  the  official  and  military  classes.  When 
Japan  was  re-opened  to  foreign  intercourse  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  kami-shimo  with  its 
pointed  shoulders  and  divided-skirt  trousers, 
seemed  to  be  in  almost  universal  use,  and  the  as- 
pect that  its  wearers  presented  was  not  unlike 
that  of  a  butterfly  with  extended  wings  and  an 
abnormally  long  body. 


.HJTHA'.)    AVODAK 
won  ei  ll    .usfixsl  nirsoriS  arfJ  lo  nog  orij  to 


:  abiol  febu^  tssig 


Old  I  ni  bsJosi3 


NAGOYA   CASTLE. 

Erected  in  1610  by  twenty  great  feudal  lords  to  serve  as  the  residence  of  the  son  of  the  Shogim  leyasu.    It  Is  now 
preserved  as  a  monument  of  historic  interest. 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

Head-gear  took  various  forms,  —  some  quaint 
and  ungraceful,  some  simple  and  pretty.  Women, 
when  they  went  abroad,  wore  a  large  hat  like  an 
inverted  bowl ;  and  when  they  rode  on  horse- 
back they  suspended  from  the  rim  of  this  hat  a 
curtain  from  three  to  four  feet  long,  or  threw 
over  the  crown  drapery  that  reached  to  the 
shoulders  on  either  side  and  to  the  elbows  behind. 
A  much  more  picturesque  fashion  was  to  draw 
the  outer  garment,  hoodlike,  over  the  head,  leav- 
ing the  face  alone  exposed.  A  hood  independent 
of  the  garment  was  also  worn,  and  in  cold 
weather,  or  when  concealment  was  desirable,  this 
hood  could  be  made  to  envelop  the  face  so  that 
the  eyes  only  remained  visible.  Men,  too, 
adopted  this  fashion  at  times.  In  the  streets  of 
Kyoto  there  might  also  be  observed  girls  wearing 
pyramidal  caps  about  eighteen  inches  high,  look- 
ing like  large  spirals  of  horizontally  twisted  linen. 
These  were  the  Phrynes  of  the  time.  The 
official  head-gear  for  men  continued  to  be  a 
black-lacquered  cap,  bound  on  the  top  of  the  head 
—  which  it  made  no  pretence  of  fitting  —  and 
shaped  like  a  legless  and  armless  easy-chair  with 
or  without  a  jug-handle  excrescence  pendent  to 
the  shoulders  behind.  Another  less  ceremonious 
and  commoner  shape  resembled  a  small  cone  with 
its  base  elongated  behind ;  and  the  most  aristo- 
cratic form  of  all,  that  worn  by  the  SKogun 
himself,  may  be  compared  to  an  Occidental 
gentleman's  "  bell-topper,"  elongated,  deprived 

VOL.   II.  —  7  ny 


JAPAN 

of  its  rim,  and  reduced  in  circumference  so  as  not 
to  fit  the  head,  but  merely  to  be  poised  on  the 
middle  of  it. 

In  the  beginning  of  this  epoch  artisans  of  all 
classes  wore  head-gear  shaped  like  an  overgrown 
nightcap,  but  they  subsequently  discarded  this 
in  favour  of  the  cone-shaped  hat  mentioned 
above. 

None  of  these  head-dresses  could  be  honestly 
called  coverings,  except,  perhaps,  the  artisan's 
nightcap  gear.  They  were  as  little  adapted  to 
the  shape  or  size  of  the  wearer's  cranium  as  are 
some  of  the  curious  structures  that  young  ladies 
in  modern  Europe  pin  to  their  hair. 

As  to  the  materials  used  for  habiliments,  they 
varied  from  the  richest  Chinese  brocade  to  the 
coarsest  home-spun.  A  white  damasked  silk 
robe  with  dark-red  sleeves,  purple  lining,  and  a 
design  of  purple  badges,  woven  or  dyed,  was  a 
specially  aristocratic  costume ;  but,  as  a  general 
rule,  only  persons  of  exalted  rank  were  permitted 
to  wear  brocade  unless  they  received  it  as  a  gift 
from  the  SKogun's  Court.  The  use  of  pure  silk 
also  was  forbidden  outside  the  Courts  of  the  Em- 
peror and  the  SKogun,  and  purple  lining  shared 
the  veto ;  but  such  interdicts,  though  frequently 
issued,  never  commanded  much  obedience. 

Characteristic  of  the  epoch  was  the  use  of 
family  badges  for  decorative  designs.  A  gentle- 
man or  lady  might  often  be  seen  wearing  a  gar- 
ment with  large  badges  conspicuously  blazoned 

98 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

on  the  sleeves,  the  back,  and  the  shoulders.  It 
is  a  curious  fact  that  costumes  brocaded  with  gold 
or  silver  were  popularly  called  "  passara  style,"  an 
expression  obviously  derived  from  the  language 
of  some  country  westward  of  China. 

Again  and  again  legislative  attempts  were 
made  to  check  luxurious  tendencies  in  matters 
of  dress,  the  gist  of  these  enactments  being  to 
limit  the  use  of  pure  silk  to  lining  purposes. 
The  ¥aiKb  extended  official  restrictions  as  far  as 
foot-gear.  Even  his  great  power  failed,  however, 
to  make  these  rules  effective.  His  order  that 
trousers  and  stockings  must  not  be  lined,  and 
that  sandals  must  be  of  plaited  straw,  not  leather, 
was  observed  in  Kyoto  and  Osaka,  but  did  not 
carry  much  weight  in  fiefs  remote  from  the 
capital. 

Leather  socks  had  been  in  use  from  the  twelfth 
century,  women  using  them  as  well  as  men.  The 
common  leather  sock  was  brown  in  colour,  but 
those  worn  by  great  folk  were  blue,  and  had 
decorative  designs  —  which  ultimately  took  the 
shape  of  family  badges  —  embroidered  in  white 
thread.  To  this  latter  kind  the  name  "  brocaded 
sock  "  was  given,  the  brown  variety  being  called 
"  authorised  leather  "  (gomen  kawa},  since  ordi- 
nary people  might  not  use  it  without  official  per- 
mission. Women  wore  leggings  when  they  went 
on  a  journey,  and  it  may  be  said  that  the  costume 
of  females  in  these  days  was  much  more  practical 
than  that  of  their  successors  in  the  Yedo  epoch. 

99 


JAPAN 

The  badges  here  spoken  of  began  to  be  devised 
and  used  during  the  wars  of  the  Taira  and  the 
Minamoto,  according  to  tradition,  but  they  prob- 
ably existed  at  an  earlier  epoch.  Their  original 
purpose  was  to  distinguish  ally  from  enemy,  and 
by  degrees  the  habit  of  blazoning  them  on  gar- 
ments became  almost  universal  among  the  mili- 
tary class.  A  sixteen-petalled  chrysanthemum 
and  a  bunch  of  Paulownia  leaves  and  buds  were 
the  Imperial  badges,  and  their  employment  was 
interdicted  to  all  subjects.  When  and  under 
what  circumstances  the  chrysanthemum  and  the 
Paulownia  began  to  be  regarded  as  Imperial 
badges,  there  has  not  been  any  successful  attempt 
to  determine.  So  far  as  is  known,  the  chrysan- 
themum appeared  for  the  first  time  upon  the  hilt 
of  a  sword  belonging  to  the  Emperor  Gotoba 
(1186— 1198),  and  it  certainly  became  the  Impe- 
rial badge  from  that  time.  No  other  object 
occupies  an  equally  important  place  in  Japanese 
decorative  art.  It  is  used  independently,  or  as  a 
member  of  more  or  less  elaborate  designs,  with 
remarkable  ingenuity  and  effect.  But  as  to 
Japan's  title  to  have  invented  this  graceful  dec- 
orative motive,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  on  an 
early  gold  ornament  from  Camirus  now  in  the 
British  Museum  —  an  ornament  dating  from  an 
era  many  centuries  before  Christ  —  the  chrysan- 
themum enters  the  decorative  scheme  in  precisely 
the  form  given  to  it  by  Japanese  artists,  the  num- 
ber of  petals  alone  being  different.  From  Rhodes 

100 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

to  Kyoto  is  a  long  distance,  yet  it  is  extremely 
difficult  to  deny  a  common  origin  to  two  forms 
so  exactly  similar. 

Many  of  the  badges  of  mediaeval  Japan  were 
designed  to  recall  incidents  in  the  history  of  the 
family  or  individual  carrying  them.  Thus  a 
badge  in  the  form  of  a  cross  saltere  was  adopted 
by  a  warrior  who  found  that  by  wiping  his 
sword-blade  again  and  again  on  the  knee  of  his 
trousers  during  a  battle,  two  blood-stains  in  the 
shape  of  a  cross  were  produced.  Another  badge, 
consisting  of  two  wood-doves  and  a  bunch  of 
mistletoe,  commemorated  the  fact  that  Yoritomo, 
hiding  from  his  enemies  in  the  hollow  trunk  of 
a  tree,  would  have  been  discovered  had  not  two 
doves,  flying  out  of  the  trunk  as  the  pursuers 
were  about  to  search  it,  convinced  them  that  no 
one  could  be  concealed  there.  Yet  another  — 
a  circle  and  two  bars  —  represented  a  cup  and  a 
pair  of  chopsticks,  and  recalled  the  fact  that  a 
famished  soldier  recovered  his  strength  by  eating 
the  rice  laid  before  a  sacred  shrine.  Numerous 
legends  are  thus  connected  with  the  cognisances 
of  great  families,  but  many  badges,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  the  inventions  of  purely  decorative 
fancy.  Indeed  the  Japanese  badge  was  originally 
nothing  more  than  an  ornamental  design,  and 
the  term  applied  to  it  (mon)  has  primarily  that 
meaning.  Afterwards  it  derived  importance  from 
its  usefulness  as  an  aid  to  identification,  and 
soldiers  blazoned  it  on  their  banners,  on  the  front 

101 


JAPAN 

of  the  helmet,  and  on  the  breastplate.  Every 
person  of  any  social  status  had  his  badge,  and 
noble  families  had  three,  —  one  principal  and  two 
alternatives,  —  smaller  folk  being  content  with 
two  and  the  ordinary  samurai  with  one.  A  gen- 
eral or  a  feudal  chief  sometimes  conferred  on  a 
subordinate,  in  recognition  of  meritorious  con- 
duct, a  surcoat  having  the  donor's  badge  woven 
or  embroidered  on  it,  and  the  recipient  was  en- 
titled to  wear  the  garment  as  long  as  it  was  wear- 
able, but  not  to  adopt  the  badge  permanently. 
Yet  badges  were  not  necessarily  a  mark  of  aris- 
tocracy in  Japan.  Merchants  and  manufacturers 
might  have  them  woven  or  dyed  on  a  garment, 
being  careful  only  that  the  dimensions  of  the 
device  should  be  unostentatious  compared  with 
the  large  badges,  sometimes  three  or  four  inches 
in  diameter,  blazoned  on  the  costumes  of  nobles 
and  high  officials.  Even  that  restriction  disap- 
peared in  time,  and  from  the  seventeenth  century 
common  mechanics  might  be  seen  wearing  tunics 
with  badges  that  stretched  across  the  whole  space 
between  the  shoulders  behind.  Just  as  in  Europe 
a  crest  or  a  coat  of  arms  is  put  upon  carriages, 
household  utensils  and  ornaments,  so  the  Japan- 
ese applied  these  badges  not  only  to  their  gar- 
ments but  also  to  their  equipages,  their  dining 
apparatus,  the  gates  of  their  residences,  their 
tombstones,  the  tiles  of  their  roofs,  and  the  metal 
ornaments  on  the  beams  of  their  houses.  The 
only  place  from  which  the  badge  had  to  be 

IO2 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

banished  was  a  wedding  robe  or  a  mourning  gar- 
ment. It  may  be  here  noticed  that  an  ingenious 
attempt  was  recently  made  to  prove  that  several 
Japanese  badges  have  for  their  chief  motive  the 
Christian  Cross,  being  thus  a  relic  of  the  brief 
era  during  which  the  foreign  faith  found  power- 
ful converts  in  Japan  prior  to  its  virtual  extinction 
in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It 
is  difficult  to  imagine  that  badges  having  such  an 
affinity  could  have  continued  to  be  openly  worn 
in  an  age  when  even  the  cross  of  St.  George  dis- 
played on  the  flag  of  an  English  ship  precluded 
her  admission  to  a  Japanese  port. 

Family  badges  are  among  the  few  creations 
of  aristocratic  custom  that  were  not  systematised 
by  the  Japanese  and  brought  within  the  purview 
of  an  exact  code  of  regulations.  It  was  neces- 
sary, indeed,  that  among  the  retainers  of  every 
noble  household  there  should  be  some  possessing 
an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  cognisances 
of  all  great  personages,  so  that  when  the  retinues 
of  two  dignitaries  met  en  route,  there  should  be 
no  hesitation  in  exchanging  the  courtesies  appro- 
priate to  their  relative  ranks.  But  no  such 
thing  as  a  service  of  heraldry  existed. 

To  conclude  this  reference  to  the  costumes  of 
the  Military  epoch,  it  remains  to  note  that  the 
year  was  divided  into  three  periods  with  respect 
to  changes  of  garments,  —  winter  (September  ist 
to  March  31st),1  when  Kosode  was  worn;  that  is 

1  See  Appendix,  note  16. 

103 


JAPAN 

to  say,  a  robe  having  a  thick  layer  of  silk  wadding 
between  the  stuff  and  the  lining ;  spring  (April 
ist  to  May  5th),  when  the  Awase,  a  lined  gar- 
ment without  wadding,  went  into  wear ;  and 
summer  (May  5th  to  August  3ist),  when  the 
Katabira,  an  unlined  robe,  was  orthodox.  This 
rule  never  varied  in  subsequent  ages. 

Women  in  the  Military  epoch  wore  absolutely 
no  hair  ornaments.  The  fashion  in  this  respect 
bore  no  resemblance  whatever  to  that  of  subse- 
quent eras.  In  the  matter  of  shaving  the  eye- 
brows and  substituting  two  little  black  dots  high 
upon  the  forehead,  as  also  in  that  of  staining  the 
teeth  black,  the  rule  of  former  times  continued 
to  be  faithfully  observed  by  girls  out  of  their 
teens. 

Braziers  are  now  found  in  common  use,  and 
towards  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  they 
were  supplemented  by  a  contrivance  which, 
though  very  simple  in  conception,  added  greatly 
to  the  comfort  of  the  people.  A  brazier  is 
evidently  useless  for  warming  the  feet,  especially 
in  the  case  of  persons  who  habitually  sit  upon 
the  ground.  Better  suited  for  that  purpose  is 
even  the  sunken  hearth  of  aristocratic  houses  in 
previous  eras  and  of  the  lower  middle  classes  in 
all  eras.  But  the  brazier,  when  once  introduced, 
quickly  became  an  ornament  as  well  as  an  article 
of  furniture.  Manufactured  of  brass  or  bronze, 
handsomely  repousse  and  chiselled,  or  taking  the 
form  of  a  metal  receptacle  inserted  in  a  case  of 

104 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

finely  grained  or  richly  lacquered  wood,  it  soon  ob- 
tained recognition  as  the  only  heating  apparatus 
adapted  to  refined  life,  the  sunken  hearth  being 
banished  to  the  kitchen  and  the  tea-chamber. 
It  was  then  that  some  one  invented  the  kotatsu,  a 
brazier  which,  being  covered  by  a  latticed  wooden 
frame,  could  be  placed  under  a  quilt  drawn  over 
the  knees,  thus  constituting  a  mechanically  excel- 
lent though  very  insanitary  method  of  heating 
the  lower  part  of  the  body. 

Pine  torches  continued  to  be  the  chief  means 
of  obtaining  light  at  aristocratic  receptions  and 
weddings,  but  on  ordinary  excursions  they  began 
to  be  replaced  by  lanterns  consisting  of  a  candle 
set  inside  a  skeleton  frame  covered  with  an  en- 
velope of  thin  white  paper.  In  the  fifteenth 
century  a  kind  of  basket  lantern  was  devised 
which  could  be  folded  up  when  not  in  use. 
About  the  same  time  candles  began  to  be  made 
of  greatly  improved  tallow,  and  a  species  of 
match  was  invented  in  the  form  of  a  piece  of 
thin  wood  tipped  with  sulphur.  These  changes 
carried  the  Japanese  far  towards  the  limits  of 
the  improvements  made  by  them  in  lighting 
apparatus  prior  to  the  resumption  of  Occidental 
intercourse  in  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
basket  lantern,  indeed,  gradually  gave  place  to 
a  delicate  structure  decorated  so  prettily  and 
variously  that  Japanese  lanterns  ultimately  be- 
came famous  and  were  chosen  by  all  civilised 
nations  as  specially  suited  for  illuminations  where 

105 


JAPAN 

spectacular  effect  is  important.  But  the  folding 
principle  invented  in  the  fifteenth  century  was 
never  bettered. 

With  regard  to  diet,  dwellers  in  the  Imperial 
capital  continued  to  be  influenced  by  Buddhist 
vetoes  against  the  taking  of  life,  but  did  not  carry 
their  piety  beyond  refraining  from  the  flesh  of 
four-footed  animals  and  certain  birds.  As  for 
the  military  men  at  Kamakura  and  in  the  prov- 
inces, no  prejudice  of  that  kind  disturbed  them. 
They  ate  everything  eatable,  except  the  flesh  of 
oxen  and  horses.  Deer,  wild  boar,  bear,  badger, 
hare,  wild  fowl,  larks,  pheasant,  snipe,  quails, 
thrushes,  and  other  field  birds  furnished  their 
table,  and  they  laughed  at  the  citizens  of  Kyoto 
who  believed  that  the  misfortunes  of  the  Em- 
peror Go-Murakami  (1319-1368)  had  been  due 
to  his  neglect  of  the  Buddhist  commandment. 
All  kinds  of  fish,  many  varieties  of  sea-weed, 
twenty-five  vegetables,  twenty-one  fruits,  and 
some  eight  or  nine  flavourings  constituted  their 
staples  of  diet,  apart  from  rice,  barley,  and  millet. 
That  universally  serviceable  and  most  profitable 
condiment  of  the  Japanese  kitchen,  soy  (shoyu}9 
a  mixture  of  calcined  barley-meal  and  a  special 
kind  of  beans,  yeast,  water,  and  salt,  had  not  yet 
been  invented.  Its  place  was  taken  by  the  greatly 
inferior  but  much  cheaper  miso,  a  sauce  made  of 
wheat,  beans,  and  salt. 

But  although  his  list  of  edibles  was  large,  the 
military  man  nominally  contented  himself  with 

1 06 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

two  meals  a  day.  His  chief  food  was,  of  course, 
rice,  everything  else  being  regarded  as  a  relish, 
and  his  normal  allowance  of  the  grain  was  a  pint 
and  a  half  daily.  This  he  simply  boiled  in  a  pot 
or  cauldron,  instead  of  resorting  to  the  more 
aristocratic  method  of  steaming  it  in  a  covered 
jar.  In  the  intervals  between  his  morning  and 
evening  meals,  he  regaled  himself,  if  his  resources 
permitted,  with  vermicelli,  macaroni,  bean-jelly, 
rice-dumplings,  and  various  kinds  of  cakes  and 
fruits,  washed  down  by  tea  or  hot  water  scented 
with  pickled  cherry-buds. 

There  is  no  special  change  to  be  noted  in  the 
manner  of  serving  meals  or  in  the  utensils  em- 
ployed, except  that  the  use  of  tables  in  Chinese 
style  went  altogether  out  of  fashion,  and  the 
viands  were  ranged  upon  a  tray  standing  about 
four  inches  high,  which  was  placed  upon  the 
ground.  Every  diner  had  his  own  set  of  trays, 
one  for  each  course  or  class  of  viands.  The 
greatest  refinement  of  manufacture  marked  the 
various  apparatus,  the  cups,  bowls,  and  trays  being 
of  rich  lacquer,  and  the  wine-pourers  of  silver  or 
gold.  This  description  does  not  apply  to  the 
case  of  commoners,  of  course.  They  had  utensils 
of  plain  black  or  red  lacquer  and  wine-holders 
of  unglazed  pottery.  From  the  fifteenth  century 
China  sent  over  vessels  of  porcelain  decorated  with 
blue  sous  couverte,  or  of  stoneware  covered  with 
celadon  glaze.  At  an  even  earlier  date  she  had 
supplied  objects  of  the  same  class  though  techni- 

107 


JAPAN 

cally  inferior,  but  they  were  beyond  the  reach  of 
any  save  the  wealthiest  people.  In  the  sixteenth 
century  Japan  began  to  manufacture  porcelain 
for  herself,  but  nearly  a  hundred  years  elapsed 
before  it  .became  the  rival  of  lacquer  for  table 
utensils.  It  is  worth  noting  that  in  the  Palace 
as  well  as  in  the  mansions  of  noblemen  and  the 
barracks  of  soldiers,  the  most  approved  kind  of 
wine-cup  was  a  shallow  bowl  of  unglazed  red 
pottery,  which  was  never  used  more  than  once 
by  those  that  could  afford  such  extravagance. 

In  spite  of  the  nominally  frugal  habits  of  the 
military  class,  Kyoto  continued  its  career  of  lux- 
ury, especially  from  the  days  of  the  celebrated 
Ashikaga  Shogun,  Yorimitsu  (1368—1394).  The 
date  of  this  ruler's  accession  to  power  corresponds 
with  that  of  the  establishment  of  the  Ming 
dynasty  in  China,  and  relations  of  exceptional 
intimacy  were  established  between  the  two  Em- 
pires, Japan  recovering  her  old-time  respect  for 
the  civilisation  of  her  neighbour.  But  Yorimitsu 
imitated  the  extravagant  sybaritism  of  the  later 
Yuan  Mongols  rather  than  the  austere  self-denial 
of  the  early  Ming  sovereigns.  Of  him  and  of 
his  fifth  successor,  Yoshimasa  (1449-1472),  it 
must  be  said  that  they  squandered  the  State's 
resources  on  excesses  of  every  kind,  but  it  must 
also  be  said  that  their  aesthetic  impulses  and 
munificent  patronage  of  art  conferred  permanent 
benefit  on  their  country. 

Perhaps  the  truest  explanation  of  Yoshimasa's 

108 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

unparalleled  devotion  to  art  in  every  form,  his 
building  of  the  Silver  Pavilion,  his  intimate  asso- 
ciation with  great  painters,  his  elaboration  of  the 
tea  ceremonial,  his  extension  of  the  incense  cult, 
his  love  of  landscape  gardening,  and  his  passion 
for  objects  of  virtu,  is  to  say  that  he  responded 
to  the  remarkable  movement  taking  place  con- 
temporaneously in  China.  He  became  Shogun 
fifteen  years  after  the  conclusion  of  the  Shun-tieh 
era  (1426—1436),  which,  together  with  the  pre- 
vious era  of  Yung-lo  (1403-1425),  must  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  greatest  epochs  of  Chinese 
art,  —  an  epoch  when  the  manufacture  of  por- 
celain first  became  a  really  skilled  achievement, 
and  when  the  grand  painters,  Lii  Ki,  Liu  Tsun, 
Bien  Kingchao,  and  Liu  Liang  rivalled  the 
renown  of  the  immortal  Sung  masters.  Japan 
would  certainly  have  felt  that  remarkable  move- 
ment, even  though  she  had  not  been  ruled  by  a 
man  so  singularly  receptive  of  art  influence  as 
Yoshimasa ;  but  the  coincidence  that  her  affairs 
happened  to  be  administered  by  such  a  magnifi- 
cent dilettante  just  at  the  moment  when  her 
neighbour  was  entering  a  brilliant  period  of  art 
achievement,  which  lasted,  almost  without  inter- 
ruption, for  nearly  four  centuries,  undoubtedly 
helped  to  push  her  towards  her  destiny  of  aesthetic 
greatness.  Her  painters  did  not,  it  is  true,  imme- 
diately adopt  the  brilliant  colouring  and  delicate 
finish  of  the  Ming  masters  ;  they  preferred  the 
broad,  bold  style  of  the  Sung  artists.  But  had 

109 


JAPAN 

not  their  attention  been  directed  to  China  by  the 
general  impulse  of  art  development  that  followed 
the  accession  of  the  Ming  monarchs,  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  they  would  never  have  evolved  the 
great  academy  of  landscape  painters  which  num- 
bered Sesshiu,  Shiubun,  Oguri  Sotan,  Soga  Jasoku, 
and  Kano  Motonobu.  This  is  not  the  place  to 
speak  of  such  matters  in  detail ;  the  broad  fact 
alone  need  be  noted  that  for  all  the  disorder  and 
unrest  by  which  the  Military  epoch  was  marked, 
it  saw  the  birth  of  a  great  art  movement  under 
the  Ashikaga  Shogun,  and  the  rapid  development 
of  the  movement  under  the  Taiko.  The  latter 
it  was  whose  practical  genius  did  most  to  popu- 
larise art.  Although  his  early  training  and  the 
occupations  of  his  life  until  a  late  period  were  of 
a  nature  to  suppress,  rather  than  to  educate, 
aesthetic  tastes,  he  devoted  to  the  cause  of  art  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  sovereign  power  that 
his  grand  gifts  as  a  military  leader  and  a  politician 
had  brought  him.  Not  only  did  he  bestow 
munificent  allowances  on  skilled  artists  and  art 
artisans,  but  he  also  conferred  on  them  distinc- 
tions which  proved  stronger  incentives  than  any 
pecuniary  remuneration,  and  when  he  built  his 
celebrated  palace  —  the  Castle  of  Pleasure  —  at 
Fushimi,  so  vast  was  the  sum  that  he  lavished  on 
its  decorations,  and  such  a  certain  passport  to  his 
favour  did  artistic  merit  prove,  that  the  little  town 
of  Fushimi  quickly  became  the  art  capital  of  the 
Empire,  and  the  residence  of  all  the  most  skilful 

no 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

painters,  lacquerers,  metal-workers,  and  wood- 
carvers  within  the  "  Four  Seas."  Historians  speak 
with  profound  regret  of  the  dismantling  and  de- 
struction of  this  splendid  edifice  after  the  death  of 
the  Taiko's  adopted  heir  ;  but  it  is  more  than  prob- 
able that  the  permanent  possession  of  even  such  a 
magnificent  monument  of  applied  art  could  not 
have  benefited  the  country  nearly  so  much  as  did 
its  destruction.  For  the  immediate  result  was  an 
exodus  of  all  the  experts  who,  settling  at  Fushimi, 
had  become  famous  for  the  sake  of  their  work  in 
connection  with  the  "  Castle  of  Pleasure.'*  They 
scattered  among  the  fiefs  of  the  most  powerful 
provincial  nobles,  who  received  them  hospitably 
and  granted  them  liberal  revenues.  From  that 
time,  namely,  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
there  sprang  up  an  inter-fief  rivalry  of  artistic 
production  which  materially  promoted  the  devel- 
opment of  every  branch  of  art  and  encouraged 
refinement  of  life  and  manners. 

This  reference  to  the  history  of  art  in  the 
context  of  the  kitchen  may  seem  discursive.  But 
it  is  necessary  to  note  the  general  spread  of 
aesthetic  influences  and  tastes  during  the  Military 
epoch  in  order  to  understand  how  even  the  once 
austere  soldier  class  were  swept  into  the  circle  of 
luxurious  living. 

From  the  days  of  Yoshimasa  cooking  became 
a  science.  It  had  its  two  academies,  the  Shijo 
and  the  Okusa,  each  professing  to  be  the  sole 
repository  of  essential  arcana  which  were  trans- 

iii 


JAPAN 

mitted  from  generation  to  generation.  Here, 
again,  just  as  in  the  ceremonials  of  tea-drinking 
and  incense-burning,  there  is  found  an  elaborate 
code  of  rules,  prescribing  not  only  the  dimen- 
sions and  shapes  of  every  implement  and  utensil, 
but  also  the  precise  manner  of  manipulating  each 
instrument  in  preparing  different  viands,  and  the 
mode  of  serving,  marshalling  and  decorating  the 
dishes.  The  vocabulary  of  the  science  is  curi- 
ously abundant,  probably  even  more  so  than  the 
nomenclature  of  the  French  cuisine,  and  super- 
stition is  invoked  to  prevent  combinations  of 
viands  considered  contrary  to  natural  canons. 
Thus,  if  wild-boar  and  leveret  were  served  to- 
gether, or  pheasant  and  badger,  or  salmon  and 
tunny-fish,  or  sazae(  Tsubo  cornutus}  and  dried  cod, 
the  eater  might  look  forward  to  some  grievous 
calamity  within  a  hundred  days.  Another  regu- 
lation prescribed  that  when  fish  and  flesh  formed 
part  of  the  same  dinner,  the  products  of  hill  and 
garden  should  be  marshalled  on  the  left,  those  of 
sea  and  river  on  the  right.  Nearly  every  dish 
had  its  appropriate  dressing  leaves,  and  these 
were  placed  face  upward  at  feasts  of  congratu- 
lation and  face  downward  on  occasions  of 
mourning. 

Elaborate  enactments  extended  to  the  etiquette 
of  eating  and  drinking  as  well  as  to  the  science 
of  cooking.  Wine  had  to  be  drunk  to  the  limit 
of  three  cups,  or  five  cups,  or  seven  cups,  or 
three  times  three  cups  ;  and  even  the  mode  of 

112 


TA 


3J1M3T  3HT   KI 
.OY>IOT  ,yl>I 


Y>IATJT^OM 


MORTUARY  BRONZE    LANTERNS    IN  THE  TEMPLE  ENCLOSURE   AT 
SHIBA   PARK,  TOKYO. 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

drinking  had  its  conventionalities,  three  sips,  five 
sips,  the  "  nightingale  style,"  the  "  dew-drop 
style,"  and  so  on.  Pouring  out  wine  was  also 
a  test  of  polite  accomplishments.  Again,  in  eat- 
ing rice,  the  perfect  gentleman  or  lady  put  into 
the  mouth  a  chopsticks'  measure  on  the  right, 
a  chopsticks'  measure  on  the  left,  a  chopsticks' 
measure  in  the  centre,  and  masticated  them  all 
three  together.  In  consuming  the  viands  placed 
before  him,  a  man  had  to  follow  the  order  of 
hill,  sea,  river,  field,  and  garden.  In  taking  soup, 
he  was  required  to  eat  some  of  the  fish,  meat,  or 
vegetable  it  contained,  before  drinking  any  of  the 
liquid.  In  using  chopsticks,  the  manner  of 
manipulating  them  had  its  rules,  and  so  also 
had  many  other  parts  of  the  procedure  which 
need  not  be  detailed.  With  regard  to  the 
position  of  the  body,  a  man  sat  upon  one  heel, 
keeping  one  knee  raised  until  the  first  tray  of 
viands  was  placed  before  him,  when  he  sat  on 
both  heels ;  and  an  attendant  had  to  conclude  his 
approach  and  commence  his  retirement  kneeling 
on  both  knees,  raising  one,  however,  when  he 
poured  out  wine  or  performed  any  other  service. 
For  ladies  the  code  was  even  more  rigorous. 
Above  all  they  were  expected  to  make  no  sound 
whatever  in  eating  or  drinking,  —  a  veto  that  had 
no  force  in  the  case  of  a  man,  he  being  entitled 
to  drink  his  soup  or  wine  or  ladle  in  his  rice 
noisily,  and  even  to  mark  his  sense  of  abundance 
by  sounds  shocking  to  polite  ears  in  the  Occident. 

VOL.    II. 8  I  I -7 


JAPAN 

Ladies  further  employed  in  naming  dishes 
a  vocabulary  entirely  different  from  that  used  by 
man. 

It  is  plain,  even  from  the  outlines  sketched 
here  and  elsewhere,  that  to  be  a  master  or  mis- 
tress of  polite  accomplishments  in  Japan  during 
the  Military  epoch,  to  understand  the  flower- 
arranging  art,  the  tea  and  the  incense  cults 
(which  will  be  spoken  of  presently),  the  etiquette 
of  the  table,  the  principles  of  poetical  composi- 
tion, and  the  elaborate  dance  movements,  required 
long  and  industrious  study. 

There  was  no  noteworthy  change  in  great 
people's  manner  of  going  abroad,  as  compared 
with  the  Heian  epoch.  They  still  used  six 
kinds  of  ox-carriage  and  four  kinds  of  palanquin. 
The  palanquin,  which  was  in  effect  a  light  ox- 
carriage  with  the  wheels  removed  and  the  shafts 
carried  to  the  same  length  behind  as  in  front, 
found,  in  this  time,  more  favour  than  the  ox- 
carriage.  It  received  great  modification  at  the 
hands  of  Yoshimasa,  the  prince  of  dilettanti. 
He  substituted  a  single  pole  for  the  two  shafts,  and 
suspended  the  vehicle  from  the  pole  instead  of 
supporting  it  on  the  shafts.  Thus  was  obtained 
the  kago,  which  played  much  the  same  part  in 
old  Japan  as  the  jinrikisba  does  to-day.  The  kago 
held  one  person.  Two  men  carried  it,  resting 
the  pole  on  their  shoulders,  and  trained  bearers 
thought  nothing  of  walking  thirty  miles  a  day, 
thus  loaded. 

114 


A  nobleman's  going  abroad  in  state  continued 
to  be  a  business  of  great  pomp  and  elaborate 
organisation.  It  reached  its  zenith  of  grandeur 
in  the  days  of  the  Ashikaga  SKoguns.  Court 
nobles  and  high  officials  deemed  it  an  honour 
to  take  part  in  the  procession  that  attended  such 
magnates  as  Yoshimitsu  or  Yoshimasa,  and  were 
particularly  flattered  if  the  duty  fell  to  them  of 
carrying  the  SKogun's  shoes,  or  acting  as  his  train- 
bearer.  This  progress  was  called  o-nari — "the 
honourable  becoming."  The  Shogun  rode  in  an 
ox-carriage  or  palanquin,  accompanied,  in  the 
former  case,  by  an  ox-driver  and  an  ox-feeder. 
The  animal  was  always  a  noble  specimen  of  its 
kind,  jet  black  and  groomed  so  that  it  shone  like 
velvet.  The  caparisons  were  scarlet,  purple,  and 
white,  and  the  carriage  glowed  with  golden 
lacquer  and  delicately  tinted  hangings.  Before 
and  behind  and  on  either  side  marched  a  crowd 
of  guards,  bearers  of  swords  and  lances,  attend- 
ants, "  miscellaneous  folks,"  carriers  of  water- 
proof coats,  umbrellas,  and  so  on.  Officers  of 
rank  carried  the  Shogun' s  sword  and  his  foot-gear, 
and  one  person,  the  bearer  of  an  article  more 
necessary  than  euphonious,  went  by  the  polite 
name  of  "morning  and  evening"  (choseki}. 
When  such  a  procession,  or  even  that  of  a  lesser 
magnate,  passed  through  the  streets,  all  the  citi- 
zens were  required  to  kneel  with  the  hands 
placed  on  the  ground  and  the  head  resting  on 
them,  and  the  shutters  of  upper  windows  giving 

"5 


JAPAN 

on  the  street  had  to  be  closed  lest  any  one  should 
"  look  down  "  on  the  great  man.  To  pass  across 
the  ranks  of  the  procession  or  in  any  way  to 
interrupt  its  progress,  exposed  the  offender  to 
instant  death  under  the  swords  of  the  guards. 

Even  an  ordinary  gentleman  when  he  rode 
abroad  was  followed  by  at  least  one  attendant  on 
foot.  He  always  carried  his  own  bow  and 
quiver,  and  sometimes  his  two  swords  also,  but 
it  was  a  common  practice  to  entrust  the  long 
sword  to  the  attendant,  who  bore  it  at  the 
"  carry."  When  there  were  two  attendants,  one 
shouldered  a  lance,  the  other  a  spare  bow;  and 
when  a  gentleman  went  on  foot,  one  attendant 
marched  behind  carrying  his  master's  long 
sword.  The  common  samurai,  of  course,  had 
no  attendant.  An  exact  code  of  etiquette  guided 
the  behaviour  of  processions  passing  each  other, 
as  well  as  of  gentlemen  meeting  a  procession, 
and  any  departure  from  the  provisions  of  this 
code  was  regarded  as  a  grave  offence. 

The  military  class  constituted  an  immense  stand- 
ing army  supported  at  the  public  charges.  It  was 
an  exceptionally  costly  army,  for  the  families  of 
the  samurai  had  to  be  maintained  as  well  as  the 
samurai  themselves,  and  the  officers,  that  is  to  say, 
the  feudal  nobles  and  their  chief  vassals,  enjoyed 
revenues  far  in  excess  of  any  emoluments  ever 
granted  elsewhere  on  account  of  military  service. 
It  is  now  necessary  to  consider  whence  funds  were 
obtained  to  meet  this  great  outlay. 

116 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

The  system  of  taxation  adopted  in  Japan  in 
early  times  and  the  changes  it  underwent  from 
age  to  age  are  interesting,  not  merely  from  a 
historical  point  of  view,  but  also  and  chiefly  as 
furnishing  an  index  of  the  people's  capacity  to 
bear  fiscal  burdens.  It  is  a  somewhat  obscure 
subject,  though  not  so  difficult  to  understand  as 
the  confusing  attempts  hitherto  made  to  eluci- 
date it  would  imply. 

Land  measure  seems  to  have  been  based  at 
the  outset  on  a  very  practical  consideration. 
The  area  required  to  grow  sufficient  rice  for 
an  adult  male's  daily  consumption  —  in  other 
words,  a  man's  ration  —  was  taken  as  the  unit. 
A  square  whose  side  measured  two  paces,  or 
six  feet,  being  considered  the  area  adequate  for 
that  purpose,  received  the  name  of  ho,  after- 
wards changed  to  tsubo.  This  unit  of  superficial 
measure  remains  unchanged  until  the  present 
day.  There  being  three  hundred  and  sixty  days 
in  the  year  according  to  the  old  calendar  — 
twelve  months  of  thirty  days  each  —  a  space 
measuring  three  hundred  and  sixty  tsubo,  and 
producing  a  year's  rations,  naturally  suggested 
itself  as  another  fundamental  area,  the  term  tan 
being  applied  to  it.  For  the  rest,  the  decimal 
system  was  adopted :  one-tenth  of  a  tan  being 
called  se,  and  ten  tan  a  cho.1 

Thus  far  as  to  superficial  measurement.  The 
next  question  is  the  grain  grown  on  a  given 

1  See  Appendix,  note  17. 

117 


JAPAN 

area.  The  basis  in  this  case  was  the  quantity  of 
rice  (on  the  stalk)  that  could  be  grasped  in  one 
hand.  This  was  called  nigiri.  Three  handfuls 
made  a  bundle  (ha}y  twelve  bundles  a  sheaf  (soku], 
and  fifty  sheaves  were  regarded  as  the  produce  of 
the  tan.  In  the  earliest  references  to  taxation, 
the  "sheaf"  is  invariably  mentioned.  The  unit 
of  capacity  was  a  wooden  box  (called  masu) 
capable  of  holding  exactly  one-tenth  of  the  grain 
obtained  from  a  sheaf;  that  is  to  say,  the  hulled 
grain.1  Naturally  a  more  definite  system  ulti- 
mately replaced  these  empirical  methods.  At 
the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  under  the 
administration  of  the  Taiko,  the  measure  of 
capacity  was  exactly  fixed,  and  its  volume  was 
called  to;  ten  to  (i.e.  a  sheaf  of  grain)  being  called 
a  koku  (3.13  bushels),  while  one-tenth  of  a  to  re- 
ceived the  name  of  s/io,  and  one-tenth  of  a  sho 
that  of  gv.  There  were  wooden  measures  having 
the  capacity  of  a  sho  and  a  go  as  well  as  that  of 
a  to? 

The  oldest  historical  record  of  land  taxation 
shows  that  the  tax  levied  on  each  tan  of  land,  in 
the  seventh  century,  was  a  sheaf  and  a  half  of 
hulled  rice,  and  since  the  average  produce  of  the 
tan  was  twenty-five  sheaves,  this  represented  only 
six  per  cent  of  the  yield.  Thenceforth  the  ten- 
dency was  steadily  in  the  direction  of  increase. 
In  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century  land  was 
divided  into  four  grades  for  fiscal  purposes ;  the 

1  Sec  Appendix,  note  18.  3  See  Appendix,  note  19* 

118 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

levy  on  the  first  grade  being  five  sheaves  per  tan 
(hulled  grain  must  always  be  understood)  ;  that 
on  the  second,  four  sheaves ;  that  on  the  third, 
three  sheaves,  and  that  on  the  fourth,  one  and  a 
half  sheaves.  This  was  called  a  tax  of  one-fifth 
or  twenty  per  cent,  the  produce  of  the  best  land 
being  then  estimated  at  twenty-five  sheaves.  In 
fact,  the  tax  was  nearly  three  and  a  half  times 
greater  in  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Saga  (810- 
823)  than  it  had  been  in  that  of  the  Emperor 
Kotoku  (645-654).  In  the  twelfth  century  the 
tax  had  become  twenty-five  per  cent,  and  there 
was  a  further  levy  of  ten  per  cent  of  the  remain- 
ing grain,  one-third  of  this  extra  impost  being 
destined  for  the  support  of  the  governors  in  the 
provinces.  Hence,  at  that  time,  the  total  grain 
tax  on  the  land  was  thirty-two  and  a  half  per 
cent  of  the  gross  produce,  the  central  govern- 
ment taking  thirty  per  cent  and  the  local  govern- 
ment two  and  a  half  per  cent. 

It  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  grain  crops  alone 
were  taxed,  other  produce  escaping.  In  addition 
to  the  levy  of  grain,  people  had  to  pay  chobutsu 
(prepared  articles) ;  as  silk  fabrics,  pongee,  and 
cotton  cloth.1  These  were  assessed  at  the  rate 
of  one  piece  of  silk  fabric,  three  pieces  of  pongee, 
and  four  pieces  of  cotton  cloth  per  cho  of  land 
(the  piece  in  every  case  being  ten  feet  long  and 
two  and  a  half  feet  wide).  Each  of  these  im- 
posts represented  a  monetary  value  of  from  thirty 

1  See  Appendix,  note  20. 

119 


JAPAN 

to  forty  momme.1  There  was  also  a  house-tax 
(kobetsu}  which  took  the  form  of  a  twelve-foot 
piece  of  cotton  cloth  per  house,  or  six  pieces  of 
ten  feet  per  cho  of  land  ;  and,  finally,  the  farmer 
had  to  pay  "  subordinate  produce  "  (fuku-sanbutsu} 
to  the  value  of  thirty  momme  per  cho.  All  these 
imposts  of  "  prepared  articles  "  aggregated  about 
one  hundred  and  eighty  momme,  or  three  ryo  per 
cho,  and  since  the  price  of  hulled  rice  was  two 
and  a  half  koku  per  ryo  and  the  grain  tax  was 
six  and  a  half  koku  per  cho,  it  would  seem  that 
the  total  imposts  levied  on  each  cho  of  land  were 
fourteen  koku.  The  average  produce  of  rice  per 
cho  was  reckoned  in  those  days  at  twenty  koku, 
and  it  thus  appears  that  seventy  per  cent  of  the 
produce  was  taken  by  the  tax-collector.  The 
people  were  further  required  to  provide  weapons 
of  war,  and  had  to  perform  forced  labour.  The 
saying  current  in  that  era  —  from  the  close  of 
the  tenth  century  to  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  — 
was  that  the  Government  took  seven-tenths  of 
the  produce  of  the  land  and  left  to  the  people 
only  three-tenths. 

It  has  to  be  remembered  in  this  context  that,  in 
addition  to  the  taxes  enumerated  above,  every  male 
between  the  ages  of  twenty-one  and  sixty-six  was 
liable  for  thirty  days'  forced  labour  annually,  and 
every  minor  for  fifteen  days ;  which  corvee  could  be 
commuted  by  paying  three  pieces  of  cotton  cloth, 
equivalent  in  value  to  about  a  koku  of  rice. 

1  See  Appendix,  note  21. 

1 2O 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

When  Yoritomo,  the  Minamoto  chieftain, 
made  Kamakura  the  administrative  capital  of 
the  Empire,  he  adopted  the  policy  of  lightening 
the  people's  burdens,  but  he  did  not  succeed  in 
reducing  them  to  fifty  per  cent  of  the  produce  of 
the  land,  though  it  appears  to  have  been  the 
principle  of  his  fiscal  system  that  one-half  of  the 
yield  of  the  soil  should  go  to  the  ruler  and  one- 
half  to  the  ruled.  Yasutoki  (1225-1242),  the 
second  of  the  Hqjo  Vicegerents,  a  man  of  great 
governing  acumen,  not  only  lowered  the  taxes  to 
fifty  per  cent  of  the  produce,  but  also  amended 
the  law  of  forced  labour.  Another  of  the  Hojo 
chiefs,  Tokiyori  (i  246-1 263),  pursued  this  policy 
still  more  resolutely.  He  enacted  that  the  prod- 
uce of  the  best  land  should  be  estimated  at  two 
koku  per  tan,  and  that  it  should  be  equally  divided 
between  the  farmer  and  the  Government.  A 
tan  of  fertile  land  really  yielded  two  and  a  half 
koku.  Hence  Tokiyori's  system  gave  one  and 
a  half  koku  to  the  farmer  and  one  to  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  the  tax,  though  nominally  fifty  per 
cent,  was  in  reality  only  forty  per  cent.  Tokiyori 
was  the  first  to  introduce  this  method  of  lighten- 
ing the  taxes  by  underestimating  the  producing 
power  of  the  land.  It  was  in  his  time,  also,  that 
the  monetary  value  of  five  koku  of  unhulled  rice 
was  fixed  at  one  thousand  copper  cash,  and  a  plot 
of  land  assessed  to  yield  ten  koku  and  therefore 
paying  five  koku,  received  the  name  of  ik-kwan- 
mon  no  kiubun  (a  "  thousand-cash-paying  area"). 

121 


JAPAN 

When  the  Ashikaga  family  obtained  the  ad- 
ministrative power,  its  representative,  Takauji 
(1338— 1356),  reverted  to  the  methods  of  Yori- 
tomo,  his  ancestor.  But  his  sway  did  not  extend 
effectively  to  more  than  seven-tenths  of  the  Em- 
pire. A  few  years  later,  the  Shogun  Yoshimitsu, 
most  celebrated  of  the  Ashikaga  rulers,  following 
the  advice  of  a  wise  Minister,  reduced  the  tax 
definitely  to  the  ratio  of  four  parts  to  the  ruler 
and  six  to  the  ruled.  But  Yoshimasa  (1449- 
1472),  the  most  luxurious  of  Japanese  rulers, 
unable  to  defray  the  extravagant  expenditures  of 
his  court  with  the  proceeds  of  such  an  impost, 
greatly  raised  the  rate.  His  methods,  however, 
were  so  capricious  and  irregular  that  it  seems  im- 
possible to  determine  exactly  what  his  levy  was. 

In  addition  to  these  regular  taxes  the  Govern- 
ment of  mediaeval  Japan  had  recourse  to  the  ex- 
pedient of  forced  loans,  issuing  duly  signed  bonds 
to  the  lenders.  Sometimes  these  bonds  consti- 
tuted merely  nominal  security,  but  in  general 
they  were  redeemed  wholly  or  in  part.  The 
great  territorial  magnates  resorted  constantly  to 
this  device,  so  that  the  strong-rooms  of  most  of 
the  leading  merchants  contained  documentary 
evidence  of  large  sums  lent  by  them  to  their 
feudal  rulers  at  merely  nominal  rates  of  interest. 
Ordinary  borrowers,  on  the  other  hand,  had  to 
pay  a  very  high  price  for  accommodation,  and 
since  the  interest  was  compounded  and  added  to 
the  principal  at  short  intervals,  the  foreclosure  of 

122 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

mortgages  and  the  distraining  of  property  were 
constant  sources  of  embarrassment  and  distress. 
In  times  of  adversity,  when  it  seemed  that  the 
burden  of  debts  had  become  excessive,  or  that  they 
had  been  contracted  under  the  pressure  of  want 
resulting  from  natural  calamities,  the  Government 
sometimes  adopted  the  course  of  proclaiming  the 
cancellation  of  all  obligations  in  existence  at  a 
certain  date.  Naturally  this  false  policy  had  ulti- 
mately the  effect  of  accentuating  the  distress  it 
was  intended  to  relieve,  for  by  greatly  increasing 
the  risks  of  the  lender,  it  compelled  him  to  make 
his  terms  proportionately  severe.  Nevertheless, 
since  the  original  motive  of  the  measure  was  a 
benevolent  desire  to  free  the  poor  from  the  obli- 
gations they  had  contracted  to  the  rich,  and  to 
prevent  the  accumulation  of  large  wealth  in  the 
hands  of  individuals,  it  was  called  toku-sei y  or  the 
"  virtuous  system."  Yoshimasa,  the  Ashikaga 
Shogun  spoken  of  above,  abused  the  toku-sei  in 
an  extraordinary  manner.  Having  resorted  to 
forced  loans  from  the  well-to-do  citizens  of  Kyoto 
as  often  as  eight  times  in  a  month,  whereas  the 
limit  previously  had  been  four  times  in  a  year, 
and  having  thus  issued  an  inconvenient  number 
of  bonds,  he  freed  himself  from  all  these  obliga- 
tions by  proclaiming  the  toku-sei y  not  once,  but 
several  times.  In  his  case  it  was  evidently  rob- 
bery, pure  and  simple,  but  his  ministers  solemnly 
adhered  to  the  pretence  of  aiding  the  poor  and 
disseminating  wealth.  The  practice  of  such 

123 


JAPAN 

customs  renders  it  difficult  to  arrive  at  any  precise 
estimate  of  the  sums  levied  from  the  people  in 
feudal  Japan. 

Hideyoshi,  the  Taiko,  showed  himself  such  a 
consummate  statesman  that  one  naturally  looks 
for  a  reduction  of  taxation  among  his  adminis- 
trative measures.  The  opposite  is  the  truth.  He 
fixed  the  ratio  of  the  landlord's  share  to  that  of 
the  farmer  at  two  to  one,  or,  as  the  men  of  his  time 
expressed  it,  the  Government  took  seven  parts  and 
left  only  three  to  the  people.  He  also  altered 
the  measure  of  the  tan  by  changing  the  number 
Qitsubo  from  three  hundred  and  sixty  to  three  hun- 
dred, —  a  step  which  has  frequently  been  con- 
demned as  an  arbitrary  device  for  increasing  the 
burden  of  taxation,  though  in  reality  it  had  no 
such  effect.  Had  the  nominal  yield  of  the  tan 
for  purposes  of  taxation  been  assessed  at  the  same 
figure  for  the  tan  of  three  hundred  tsubo  as  for 
the  tan  of  three  hundred  and  sixty  tsubo,  there 
would  have  been  good  ground  for  complaint,  but 
since  the  taxable  yield  was  diminished  in  the  same 
ratio  as  the  area,  the  farmer  suffered  no  hardship 
on  that  account.  His  genuine  grievance  consisted 
in  having  to  pay  into  the  treasury  nearly  seventy 
per  cent  of  his  farm's  produce.  The  Taik'o  further 
had  recourse  to  forced  labour  unsparingly.  The 
great  works  that  he  caused  to  be  constructed  — 
the  castles  at  Osaka  and  Fushimi  —  required  the 
employment  of  thousands  of  workmen,  and  his 
example  induced  many  of  the  provincial  magnates 

124 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

to  undertake  similar  tasks,  so  that  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth  century  saw  the  nation  much  distressed. 
Another  act  which  added  to  the  weight  of  tax- 
ation was  the  issue  of  an  order  for  re-surveying  all 
the  land  throughout  the  Empire,  the  surveyors  be- 
ing required  to  use  a  pole  exactly  six  feet  (one  ken) 
in  length,  whereas  the  pole  previously  in  use  had 
varied  from  six  feet  three  inches  to  six  feet  five 
inches.  It  is  supposed  that  these  additional  inches 
were  intended  to  be  a  space  for  the  grasp  of  the 
measuring  official,  but  evidently  they  opened  the 
door  to  many  abuses.  A  tan  measured  with  a 
six-foot  five-inch  pole  is  sixteen  per  cent  larger 
than  a  tan  measured  with  a  six-foot  pole,  and  the 
taxable  measure  of  produce  being  the  same  in 
either  case,  no  little  importance  attached  to  the 
nature  of  the  pole  employed.  The  result  of  the 
Taiko's  fiscal  enactments  and  his  re-surveys  was  that 
the  nominal  yield  of  rice  throughout  the  Empire 
increased  from  eighteen  and  three-fourths  million 
koku  to  twenty-six  and  a  fourth  millions,  —  a  figure 
only  twelve  millions  less  than  the  crop  of  the  pres- 
ent time.  The  exemptions  fixed  by  him  partook 
of  the  same  severity.  In  ancient  days  the  land 
tax  had  been  remitted  if  the  crop  fell  to  fifty  per 
cent  of  the  annual  average  yield.  Hideyoshi  did 
not  sanction  remission  until  the  yield  fell  to  one- 
twentieth  of  the  average.  A  saving  feature  of  his 
legislation  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  was  that  he  put 
an  end  to  the  exemption  from  taxation  hitherto 
enjoyed  by  the  Court  nobles  and  the  military 

125 


JAPAN 

class,  and  required  all  grades  to  pay  at  the  same 
rate.  Another  abuse  corrected  by  him  was  the 
habit  of  the  tax-collectors  to  add  an  arbitrary 
quantity  as  their  own  perquisite,  calling  it  an 
allowance  for  loss  in  transit.  Hideyoshi  limited 
this  to  two  per  cent  of  the  legal  tax.  The  extent 
to  which  this  form  of  extortion  had  been  carried 
previously  is  not  easy  to  conjecture,  but  it  is  not 
surprising  to  find  that  the  farmers  often  sought  to 
conceal  or  falsify  the  amount  of  the  yield,  and  that 
bribery  was  extensively  employed  to  influence  the 
tax-collector's  returns.  Farmers  often  preferred 
to  abandon  their  holdings  and  remove  to  some 
other  fief  where  the  officials  were  less  exacting,  but 
the  law  dealt  with  them  severely  if  they  attempted 
to  escape  in  that  manner,  and  dealt  severely  also 
with  any  one  harbouring  or  concealing  them. 
In  such  cases  the  method  of  "  comprehensive 
punishment "  was  resorted  to  ;  that  is  to  say,  not 
only  the  offender  but  his  relatives,  friends,  and 
neighbours  were  all  included  in  the  circle  of 
responsibility. 

Under  the  Tokugawa  administration,  the  rate 
of  tax  fixed  by  law  was  four-tenths  of  the  gross 
yield,  and  that  figure  may  be  taken  as  represent- 
ing an  approximation  to  the  impost  actually  levied 
throughout  the  period  commencing  with  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Yedo  Government  at  the  close 
of  the  sixteenth  century  and  ending  with  the  abo- 
lition of  feudalism  at  the  beginning  of  the  Meiji 
era  (i  867).  It  is  only  an  approximation,  however, 

126 


MANNERS     AND     CUSTOMS 

for  the  various  fiefs  always  enjoyed  a  measure  of 
fiscal  independence,  and  many  of  them  regulated 
their  system  of  taxation  without  regard  to  the 
edicts  of  Yedo  or  to  its  example.  There  cannot 
be  much  error,  however,  in  asserting  that  the 
average  rate  of  taxation  was  certainly  not  less 
than  four-tenths  of  the  gross  produce,  —  four  to 
the  landlord,  six  to  the  tenant. 


127 


Chapter   IV 


WEAPONS  AND  OPERATIONS  OF  WAR 
DURING   THE   MILITART  EPOCH 


I 


bow  was  always  the  chiei  weapon 
of  the  fighting  man  in  Japan.  "  War  " 
and  "  bow  and  arrow "  (yumi-ya)  are 
synonyms.  Men  spoke  of  Hachiman, 
the  God  of  Battles,  as  Tumi-ya  no  Hachiman ;  the 
left  hand  received  the  name  of  yunde  (yumi-nd-te, 
or  bow-hand),  by  which  it  is  still  commonly  des- 
ignated, and  the  general  term  for  "  soldier  "  was 
"  bow-holder." 

It  is  possible  that  a  strain  of  romance  runs 
through  the  traditions  relating  to  the  use  of  this 
weapon  by  the  Japanese  of  old ;  but  that  fine 
skill  was  acquired,  there  can  be  no  question. 
The  first  archer  of  national  renown  was  Yoshiiye, 
whose  fifth  descendant,  Yoritomo,  founded  the 
system  of  military  feudalism  and  made  Kamakura 
the  administrative  capital  of  the  Empire.  Yo- 
shiiye's  strategical  abilities,  displayed  in  a  cam- 
paign against  the  autochthons  of  the  north,  won 
for  him  the  title  of  Hachiman  Taro  (eldest  son  of 
the  God  of  War).  Such  virtue  resided  in  his  bow, 
according  to  the  belief  of  the  men  of  his  day,  that 

128 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

the  Emperor  Shirakawa  (1073—1086),  by  laying 
it  beside  his  pillow,  obtained  respite  from  tor- 
menting dreams.  The  Minamoto  clan,  of  which 
Yoshiiye  was  the  first  great  representative,  gave 
Japan  her  most  skilled  archers.  Tametomo, 
uncle  of  the  founder  of  Kamakura,  drew  a  bow 
so  strong  that  in  the  Hogen  conflict  (i  156),  when 
two  brothers  advanced  to  attack  him,  he  shot  an 
arrow  which  passed  through  the  body  of  the  elder 
and  afterward  wounded  the  younger  severely. 
Concerning  the  skill  of  this  renowned  archer  a 
story  has  been  handed  down  which  may  be  called 
the  parallel  of  the  William  Tell  legend.  Fighting 
under  his  father's  banner,  and  finding  himself  op- 
posed to  his  elder  brother,  Yoshitomo,  he  an- 
nounced his  intention  of  shooting  a  shaft  which, 
without  injuring  Yoshitomo,  would  recall  him  to 
his  father's  cause.  A  comrade  urged  him  to 
desist,  lest  he  should  err  in  his  aim  and  wound 
his  brother,  but  he  ridiculed  such  an  accident  as 
impossible.  Yoshitomo  was  standing  near  the 
gate  of  a  beleaguered  stronghold.  The  arrow 
pierced  the  crest  of  his  helmet  and  buried  itself 
in  the  portal  of  the  gate.  Tametomo  being  after- 
wards taken  prisoner,  his  captors,  thinking  to  end 
his  exploits  with  the  bow,  extracted  one  of  the 
sinews  of  his  right  arm  and  exiled  him  to  the 
island  O-Shima.  But  the  cruel  act,  though  it 
impaired  his  strength,  enabled  him  ultimately 
to  shoot  a  longer  arrow,  and  it  is  related  that  in 
his  last  fight  he  sunk  a  boat  with  a  single  shaft. 

VOL.  ii 9  129 


JAPAN 

In  estimating  the  credibility  of  this  feat,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  bow  of  Japan  was  from 
six  to  eight  feet  long,  and  that  the  arrow  meas- 
ured from  eleven  to  seventeen  "  fists,"  that  is  to 
say,  from  three  to  four  feet.1  Some  of  the  bows 
must  have  been  very  powerful.  Their  strength 
was  measured  by  the  number  of  ordinary  men 
required  to  string  them,  as  a  "  one-man-power 
bow/'  a  "  three-man-power  bow,"  and  even  a 
"  ten-man-power  bow."  Originally  the  weapon 
was  of  unvarnished  box-wood  or  selkowa,  but 
subsequently  bamboo  alone  came  to  be  employed, 
being  covered  with  lacquer  as  a  preservative. 
Binding  with  cord  or  rattan  served  to  strengthen 
the  bow,  and  for  precision  of  flight  the  arrow  had 
three  feathers,  an  eagle's  wing  —  the  "  true  bird's 
pinion  "  (matori-ba)  —  being  most  esteemed  for 
that  purpose,  and  after  it  in  order  the  wing  of  the 
copper  pheasant,  of  the  crane,  of  the  adjutant,  or 
of  the  snipe.  The  feathers  were  sometimes  dyed, 
and  skilled  archers  carved  their  names  on  .a  shaft 
to  enlighten  their  foes.  The  iron  arrow-head 
took  various  shapes :  simply  pointed  for  pene- 
tration ;  or  barbed ;  or  razor-forked,  for  striking 
the  foe  in  the  neck  and  cutting  off  his  head,  a 
feat  said  to  have  been  actually  accomplished. 

These  details  make  it  easier  to  credit  the  re- 
corded achievements  of  the  Japanese  bowman. 
When  the  first  iron  shield  was  brought  from 
Korea  in  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Nintoku 

1  See  Appendix,  note  22. 

130 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

(313—399),  a  Japanese  warrior,  Tatebito,  pierced 
it  with  an  arrow.  The  Koreans  did  homage  to 
him,  and  the  Emperor  conferred  on  him  the  name 
Ikuba  (target).  Passing  from  strength  of  bow  to 
skill  in  archery,  the  Japanese  preserve  in  perpetual 
recollection  a  challenge  given  by  the  Taira  to  the 
Minamoto  in  the  last  battle  of  the  Red  and  White 
Flags.  The  Taira  men  placed  a  beautiful  lady 
standing  in  the  bow  of  one  of  their  boats  and  sus- 
pended a  sacred  fan  over  her  head,  challenging 
the  Minamoto  to  shoot  at  it.  Nasu  no  Mune- 
taka,  forcing  his  horse  girth-deep  into  the  > water, 
sent  a  shaft  that  struck  the  stem  of  the  wind- 
swayed  fan  and  cut  it  free.  It  is  told  also  of 
Asamura,  a  bowman  in  the  troops  of  Yoritsune 
(1239),  that  a  pet  bird  having  escaped  from  a 
cage,  he  shot  a  small  arrow  which  winged  it 
without  inflicting  any  serious  injury.  Exploits 
of  that  kind  were  counted  special  tests  of  skill. 
In  the  days  of  the  Emperor  Toba  (1108-1123) 
an  osprey  visited  the  Palace-lake  daily  and  car- 
ried off  a  fish.  The  Emperor  asked  whether 
none  of  his  archers  could  stay  the  bird's  depre- 
dations without  violating,  within  the  Imperial 
precincts,  the  Buddhist  law  against  taking  life. 
Mutsuru,  using  an  arrow  with  a  forked  head,  cut 
off  the  osprey's  feet  as  it  was  rising  from  the  lake 
with  a  fish  in  its  talons.  The  fish  dropped  into 
the  water  and  the  bird  continued  its  flight.  An 
incident  of  the  same  nature  particularly  charac- 
teristic of  the  era,  occurred  when  Nitta  Yoshi- 


JAPAN 

sada's  forces  confronted  the  army  of  Ashikaga 
Takauji  at  Hyogo,  just  before  the  fight  that  shat- 
tered the  Imperialists.  Shigeuji,  one  of  Yoshi- 

da's  captains,  shot  an  osprey  through  the  wing 
s  it  soared  with  a  fish  in  its  claws,  so  that  the 

ird  fell  alive  into  the  Ashikaga  camp.  A  cry 
of  applause  rose  from  both  armies,  and  Takauji 
shouted  an  inquiry  as  to  the  archer's  name.  "  I 
send  it  to  you,"  replied  Shigeuji,  stringing  an 
arrow  on  which  his  name  was  inscribed  and  dis- 
charging it  at  one  of  the  enemy's  watch-towers, 
three  hundred  and  sixty  paces  distant.  The  shaft 
pierced  the  tower  and  wounded  a  soldier  within. 
As  a  final  illustration  of  the  power  of  the 
Japanese  bow,  a  feat  may  be  mentioned  which 
had  much  vogue  from  the  twelfth  century  until 
recent  times.  In  Kyoto  there  is  a  temple  called 
the  "  hall  of  the  thirty-three-pillar  spans  "  (san- 
jusan-gen-do).  On  its  west  front  is  a  veranda 
one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  yards  long  and  six- 
teen feet  high.  Evidently  to  shoot  an  arrow  the 
whole  length  of  this  corridor  where  so  little  ele- 
vation can  be  given  to  the  shaft,  requires  a  bow 
of  great  strength,  to  say  nothing  of  truth  of  flight. 
In  1686  Wada  Daihachi  succeeded  in  sending 
8,133  arr°ws  from  end  to  end  of  the  corridor 
between  sunset  and  sunset,  an  average  of  about 
five  shafts  per  minute  during  twenty-four  consec- 
utive hours.  The  feat  sounds  incredible,  but  it 
was  nearly  equalled  at  a  later  date  by  Tsuruta 
Masatoki,  an  archer  in ''  the  train  of  the  feudal 

132 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

chief  of  Sakai.  The  scene  of  Masatoki's  exploit 
was  the  Sanjusan-gen-do  in  Yedo,  for  in  the  Fuku- 
gawa  suburb  of  the  latter  city  a  hall  had  been 
erected  on  exactly  the  same  lines  as  those  of  the 
Kyoto  building,  its  sole  purpose  being  archery. 
It  was  the  custom  to  commence  these  trials  of 
skill  and  endurance  at  sunset,  and  to  continue  the 
shooting  all  through  the  night  by  torchlight  until 
an  appointed  hour  on  the  following  day.  Masa- 
toki  fired  the  first  shaft  at  seven  p.  M.  on  the 
1 9th  of  May,  1852,  and  the  last  at  three  P.M. 
on  the  2oth.  During  that  interval  of  twenty 
hours  he  discharged  10,050  arrows,  and  5,383 
flew  true  down  the  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
eight  yards  of  corridor.  He  discharged  nine 
shafts  per  minute,  approximately,  and  more  than 
half  of  them  were  successful.  Possibly  it  is  not 
inaccurate  to  conclude  that  the  Japanese  of  the 
Military  epoch,  if  not  the  greatest  archers  in  the 
world,  were  certainly  second  to  none. 

In  three  essential  respects  their  method  of 
shooting  differed  from  that  of  Occidental  bow- 
men. Instead  of  raising  the  point  of  the  arrow 
in  sighting,  they  lowered  it,  and  instead  of  hook- 
ing the  three  first  fingers  round  the  string,  they 
held  it  between  the  bent  thumb  and  the  index 
finger,  a  grasp  which  greatly  facilitated  smooth- 
ness of  release.  Finally,  they  discharged  the 
arrow  from  the  right  side  of  the  bow.  The 
bow-arm  remained  slightly  bent,  even  at  the  mo- 
ment of  release,  so  that  no  guard  for  the  fore-arm 

133 


JAPAN 

was  required,  but  the  right  gauntlet  had  slight 
padding  to  save  the  string-finger.  The  quiver, 
slung  on  the  back,  held  from  sixteen  to  thirty-six 
arrows,  and  the  shafts  were  drawn  from  it  over 
the  left  shoulder. 

To  complete  this  sketch  it  should  be  added 
that  the  bowman's  art,  as  practised  by  the  busht 
(warrior),  was  of  two  general  kinds,  equestrian 
archery  and  foot  archery,  and  of  each  there  were 
three  varieties.  In  equestrian  archery  the  varie- 
ties were,  shooting  at  three  diamond-shaped  tar- 
gets set  up  at  equal  intervals  in  a  row ;  shooting 
at  a  rush-woven  hat  placed  on  a  post ;  and  shoot- 
ing with  padded  arrows  at  a  dog.  The  costumes 
worn  at  each  of  these  three  exercises  differed 
slightly,  but  the  difference  counted  for  much  in 
a  society  austerely  obedient  to  etiquette.  It  was 
necessary  that  the  shafts  should  be  discharged 
while  the  horse  was  in  swift  motion,  but  no  in- 
ference of  great  skill  may  be  drawn  from  that 
fact,  for  the  Japanese  pony  was  invariably  trained 
to  trot  "  disunited  "  without  "  breaking,"  and  the 
motion  being  thus  free  from  jolting,  a  rider 
experienced  little  difficulty  in  standing  steadily  in 
the  capacious  shoe-shaped  stirrups  while  drawing 
his  bow.  Altogether  this  shooting  at  a  fixed 
target,  whether  diamond-shaped  or  in  the  form 
of  a  hat,  was  reduced  to  a  mechanical  perform- 
ance, the  range  being  very  short,  the  course  in- 
variable, the  size  of  the  enclosure  uniform,  and 
the  horse  perfectly  trained,  —  a  kind  of  social 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

pageant,  indeed,  rather  than  a  genuine  military 
exercise.  When  dogs  became  the  targets,  skill  of 
a  more  genuine  type  was  required.  This  kind 
of  archery  had  its  origin  in  the  hunting  of  wild 
cattle  on  the  moors,  but  ultimately  dogs  were 
substituted,  a  hundred  or  fifty  being  let  loose  in 
an  arena  of  fixed  dimensions,  where  they  were 
pursued  by  thirty-six  archers  on  horseback.  Here 
again  the  dominant  idea  was  sport  and  spectacular 
effect.  For  really  earnest  archery  it  is  necessary 
to  turn  to  the  unmounted  bowman,  but  his 
method  of  practice  need  not  be  described  further 
than  to  say  that  his  favourite  targets  were  a  sus- 
pended ball,  a  stag  made  of  grass,  or  strips  of 
paper  hanging  from  a  stick. 

In  very  ancient  times  the  bow  was  supple- 
mented by  the  sling,  and  in  the  ninth  century 
a  catapult  came  into  use.  But  these  implements 
never  had  wide  vogue.  A  fire  arrow  was  occa- 
sionally employed.  Japanese  soldiers  used  it  in 
their  Korean  campaign  in  the  sixth  century,  and 
after  the  introduction  of  fire-arms  it  was  dis- 
charged from  a  barrel  by  means  of  gunpowder. 

Sometimes,  but  very  rarely,  stone-throwing 
occupied  the  soldier's  attention.  Kiheiji,  nick- 
named Hatcho  Tsubute  (the  eight-hundred-yard 
thrower),  a  follower  of  the  great  archer  Tame- 
tomo,  became  famous  for  skill  of  that  kind,  but 
it  is  noteworthy  that  the  Japanese  were  never  in- 
fected by  the  passion  of  their  neighbours,  the  Kore- 
ans, for  stone-throwing  as  a  mode  of  fighting. 


JAPAN 

The  sword  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  essen- 
tially the  weapon  of  the  bushi,  but  in  the  early 
centuries  it  does  not  seem  to  have  occupied  as 
important  a  place  for  fighting  purposes  as  the 
bow.  The  sacred  sword  which  formed  one  of 
the  three  regalia  of  Japan,  was  a  straight,  two- 
edged  weapon  (tsurugt),  but  the  distinctive 
Japanese  sword,  the  well-known  katana,  is 
a  single-edged  blade,  remarkable  for  its  three 
exactly  similar  curves  —  edge,  face-line,  and 
back  —  its  almost  imperceptibly  convexed  cut- 
ting edge,  its  fine  tempering,  its  incomparable 
sharpening,  its  beautiful  and  highly  skilled  forg- 
ing, and  its  cunning  distribution  of  weight,  giv- 
ing a  maximum  effect  of  stroke.  If  the  Japanese 
had  never  produced  anything  but  this  sword,  they 
would  still  deserve  to  be  credited  with  a  remark- 
able faculty  for  detecting  the  subtle  causes  of 
practical  effects,  and  translating  them  with  deli- 
cate accuracy  into  obdurate  material.  The  tenth 
century  saw  this  unequalled  weapon  carried  to 
completion,  and  some  have  inferred  that  only 
from  that  era  did  the  bushi  begin  to  esteem  his 
sword  the  greatest  treasure  he  possessed,  and  to 
rely  on  it  as  his  best  instrument  of  attack  and 
defence.  But  it  is  evident  that  the  evolution  of 
such  a  blade  must  have  been  due  to  an  urgent 
and  long-existing  demand.  The  katana  came  in 
the  sequel  of  innumerable  efforts  on  the  part  of 
the  sword-smith  and  generous  encouragement  on 
that  of  the  soldier.  Many  pages  of  Japanese 

136 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

annals  and  household  traditions  are  associated 
with  its  use.  .When  in  the  West  fencing  is 
spoken  of,  men  understand  that  they  are  referring 
to  an  art  the  principles  of  which  have  been 
reduced  almost  to  an  exact  science.  It  has  been 
proved  possible  to  compile  written  accounts  con- 
taining not  only  an  intelligible  but  also  an 
exhaustive  account  of  all  the  methods  and  posi- 
tions recognised  by  European  masters  of  the 
rapier,  —  the  attack,  the  parade,  the  opposition, 
the  tierce,  the  prime,  the  quarte,  and  so  on.  But 
it  was  never  admitted  in  Japan  that  the  possibili- 
ties of  katana  fencing  had  been  exhausted.  In 
every  age  numbers  of  men  devoted  their  whole 
lives  to  acquiring  novel  skill  in  swordmanship. 
Many  of  them  invented  systems  of  their  own, 
which  received  special  names  and  differed  from 
one  another  in  some  subtle  details  unknown  to 
any  save  the  master  himself  and  his  favourite 
pupils.  Not  merely  the  method  of  handling  the 
weapon  had  to  be  studied.  Associated  with 
sword-play  was  an  art  variously  known  as  sbinobi, 
yawara,  and  jt'ujutsu,  names  which  imply  the 
exertion  of  muscular  force  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  produce  a  maximum  effect  with  a  minimum 
of  apparent  or  real  effort  by  directing  an  adver- 
sary's strength  so  as  to  render  it  auxiliary  to 
one's  own.  The  mere  fact  that  gymnastics 
should  be  made  an  adjunct  of  fencing  shows  how 
greatly  the  methods  of  swordmanship  in  Japan 
differed  from  those  in  Europe.  Whether  in 

137 


JAPAN 

rapier  practice  or  in  broadsword  play,  as  these 
things  are  understood  in  the  Occident,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  a  fencer  resorting  to  devices 
learned  by  studying  the  flight  of  a  swallow,  or 
the  somersaults  of  a  cat,  or  the  leaping  of 
a  monkey.  Upon  such  models,  however,  the 
Japanese  expert  often  fashioned  his  style,  and  it 
was  an  essential  element  of  his  art  not  only  that 
he  should  be  competent  to  defend  himself  with 
any  object  that  happened  to  be  within  reach,  but 
also  that  without  an  orthodox  weapon  he  should 
be  capable  of  inflicting  fatal  injury  on  an  assail- 
ant, or,  at  any  rate,  of  disabling  him.  In  the 
many  records  of  great  swordsmen  that  Japanese 
annals  contain,  instances  are  related  of  men 
seizing  a  piece  of  firewood,  a  brazier-iron, 
or  a  druggist's  pestle  as  a  weapon  of  offence, 
while,  on  the  other  side,  an  umbrella,  an  iron 
fan,  or  even  a  pot-lid  served  for  protection. 
The  iron  fan,  especially,  was  a  favourite  weapon 
with  renowned  experts.  It  owed  its  origin  to  a 
cruel  trick  by  which  two  or  three  brave  soldiers 
had  been  victimised.  A  bushi  visiting  a  man 
whose  enmity  he  did  not  suspect,  and  kneeling 
beyond  the  threshold  of  the  apartment  to  make 
his  bow,  found  his  head  caught  in  a  vice,  the 
sliding  doors  having  been  thrust  suddenly  against 
his  neck  from  either  side.  By  way  of  protection 
against  treachery  of  that  kind,  an  iron  fan  was 
clasped  in  the  two  hands  upon  which  the  visitor 
bowed  his  head,  so  that  the  ends  of  the  fan  pro- 

138 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

jected  a  little  beyond  the  forehead  on  either  side. 
There  are  several  instances  of  victories  won  with 
a  "  war-fan  "  against  a  naked  sword,  and  many 
examples  of  men  killed  by  a  blow  from  it.  The 
bushi  had  to  be  prepared  for  every  emergency. 
Were  he  caught  weapon-less  by  a  number  of 
assailants,  his  art  of  yawara  was  supposed  to 
supply  him  with  expedients  for  emerging  un- 
scathed. Nothing  counted  but  the  issue.  The 
methods  of  gaining  victory  or  the  circumstances 
attending  defeat  were  scarcely  taken  into  consid- 
eration. The  true  bushi  had  to  rise  superior  to 
all  contingencies.  Out  of  this  perpetual  effort 
on  the  part  of  hundreds  of  experts  to  discover 
and  perfect  novel  developments  of  swordsmanship, 
there  grew  a  habit  which  held  its  vogue  down 
to  modern  times ;  namely,  that  when  a  man  had 
mastered  one  style  of  sword-play  in  the  school 
of  a  teacher,  he  set  himself  to  study  all  others, 
and  for  that  purpose  undertook  a  tour  through- 
out the  provinces,  fencing  whenever  he  found  an 
expert,  and  in  the  event  of  defeat,  constituting 
himself  the  victor's  pupil.  For  the  true  bushi 
was  expected  to  accept  defeat  as  simply  an  evi- 
dence of  his  own  inferiority,  not  at  all  as  an 
event  to  be  resented  or  avenged.  Of  course  this 
rule  of  self-restraint  did  not  obtain  universal 
observance.  Occasionally  there  were  men  who 
resorted  to  any  villany  in  order  to  compass  the 
destruction  of  a  vanquisher.  It  is  true  that  de- 
feat often  meant  ruin.  A  fencing-master  with 

'39 


JAPAN 

a  well-attended  school  and  a  substantial  income 
from  the  lord  of  a  fief,  might  find  himself  dis- 
credited for  carrying  on  the  former  and  deprived 
of  the  latter,  in  the  sequel  of  an  encounter  with 
some  itinerant  expert.  But  that  was  not  consid- 
ered any  excuse  for  showing  resentment  towards 
his  conqueror. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  law  did  not  give  itself 
any  concern  to  punish  lapses  from  the  code  of 
true  manliness.  Again  and  again  crimes  were 
perpetrated  which  in  the  West  would  be  desig- 
nated wilful  and  brutal  murder.  Yet  the  family 
or  relatives  of  the  victim  seldom  or  never  thought 
of  invoking  public  justice  upon  the  perpetrator. 
His  punishment  was  undertaken  by  the  nearest 
of  kin  to  the  murdered  man.  He  became  the 
object  of  a  vendetta,  and  a  wonderful  measure  of 
untiring  patience  and  fierce  resolve  was  often 
shown  in  hunting  him  down.  The  records  teem 
with  instances  of  men  who  spent  long  years  track- 
ing the  assassin  of  a  father  or  a  brother  from  fief  to 
fief  and  province  to  province,  and  wreaking  ven- 
geance on  him  eventually,  sometimes  by  means  as 
surreptitious  as  those  he  had  himself  employed  to 
perpetrate  his  crime,  but  generally  in  fair  com- 
bat. The  principle  of  the  vendetta  had  been  in- 
culcated by  the  teaching  of  Confucius.  That 
philosopher  laid  down  a  rule  that  no  man  should 
live  under  the  same  sky  with  the  slayer  of  his 
father.  Apter  disciples  of  such  a  creed  could 
scarcely  have  been  found  than  the  Japanese.  Even 

140 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

women  undertook  the  duty  of  vengeance  if  there 
were  no  men  in  their  family  to  discharge  it.  It 
was  a  duty  that  had  the  sanction  of  custom  rank- 
ing as  law.  A  bushi  need  only  solicit  the  per- 
mission of  his  feudal  chief  to  constitute  himself 
an  avenger  of  blood.  He  could  count  almost 
certainly  on  obtaining  sanction,  and  thenceforth 
the  consummation  of  his  purpose  was  secure 
against  official  interruption  or  punishment.  It 
frequently  happened  that  having  discovered  his 
foe,  he  made  application  to  the  chief  of  the  fief 
where  the  latter  served  to  authorise  a  public 
duel,  and  in  such  a  case  lists  were  duly  chosen, 
soldiers  appointed  to  guard  them,  and  all  precau- 
tions adopted  to  secure  fair  play.  The  life  of  a 
nation  governed  by  such  customs  could  not  fail 
to  abound  with  strange  and  vivid  episodes. 

Japanese  fencing,  numerous  as  are  the  styles 
professed  and  practised  by  different  schools,  is 
altogether  of  the  broad-sword  type.  As  a  rule, 
not  invariable,  however,  the  sword  is  grasped 
with  both  hands,  the  point  upward  and  the  hilt 
about  three-quarters  of  an  arm's-length  from  the 
body.  The  cuts  are  almost  entirely  downward 
or  horizontal,  the  only  upward  cut  employed 
being  directed  at  the  lower  part  of  the  adversary's 
fore-arm,  and  the  only  point  a  rapid  lunge  at  the 
throat.  Two  swords  are  often  used.  Sometimes 
they  are  crossed,  and  in  that  position  they  occa- 
sionally pin  an  opponent's  blade,  creating  a  situa- 
tion of  great  danger  for  him  at  the  moment  of 

141 


JAPAN 

release.  Sometimes  the  left  hand  holds  one  sword 
in  the  position  of  the  hanging  guard,  and  the 
right  manipulates  the  other  on  the  offensive. 
The  effect  of  a  stroke  does  not  depend  altogether 
upon  the  momentum  imparted  to  it,  but  owes 
much  of  its  efficacy  to  a  swift  drawing  motion 
given  to  the  blade  as  it  begins  to  bite. 

There  has  naturally  been  much  discussion  as 
to  the  relative  value  of  the  Japanese  and  the 
European  styles  of  fencing,  but  one  thing  is  quite 
clear,  namely,  that  a  Japanese  swordsman  could 
not  protect  himself  successfully  against  a  skilfully 
wielded  rapier.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be 
very  difficult  to  check  the  onset  of  a  Japanese 
swordsman  by  means  of  a  rapier.  He  would 
probably  accomplish  his  cut,  in  spite  of  his  ad- 
versary's parry  or  point.  Sixteen  varieties  of  cut 
are  delivered  with  the  Japanese  sword,  and  each 
has  its  own  name,  as  the  "four-sides  cut,"  the 
"  clearer/'  the  "  wheel  stroke,"  the  "  peak  blow," 
the>  "torso  severer,"  the  "pear  splitter,"  the 
"  thunder  stroke,"  the  "  scarf  sweep,"  and  so 
on ;  appellations  rather  fanciful  than  descriptive, 
but,  of  course,  conveying  an  exact  meaning  to 
Japanese  ears. 

The  sword  has  exercised  a  potent  influence  on 
the  life  of  the  Japanese  nation.  The  distinction 
of  wearing  it,  the  rights  that  it  conferred,  the 
deeds  wrought  with  it,  the  fame  attaching  to 
special  skill  in  its  use,  the  superstitions  connected 
with  it,  the  incredible  value  set  upon  a  fine  blade, 

142 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

the  honours  bestowed  on  an  expert  sword-smith, 
the  household  traditions  that  have  grown  up  about 
celebrated  weapons,  the  profound  study  needed 
to  be  a  competent  judge  of  a  sword's  qualities, — 
all  these  things  conspired  to  give  to  the  katana 
an  importance  beyond  the  limits  of  ordinary  con- 
ception. Sword-smiths  whose  names  have  been 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation  since 
the  seventh  century,  when  the  art  of  forging  be- 
came a  great  accomplishment,  number  thousands,1 
and  such  was  the  credit  attaching  to  skill  that  even 
an  Emperor  —  Go-toba  (1186  A.  D.)  —  thought 
sword-making  an  occupation  worthy  of  a  sov- 
ereign. Already  in  the  days  of  the  Emperor 
Ichijo  (987-1011),  three  thousand  blades  were 
recognised  as  fine,  thirty  of  them  as  excellent, 
and  four  as  superlative.  Not  until  the  time  of 
the  TaiKo  (sixteenth  century),  however,  did  any 
one  acquire  universal  repute  as  an  infallible  judge, 
competent  to  identify  the  work  of  any  of  the 
great  masters  by  examination  of  the  blade  alone, 
without  looking  at  the  name  chiselled  on  the 
tang.  Reliance  could  not,  indeed,  be  placed  on 
the  name,  since  for  every  genuine  blade  by  a  great 
master,  there  existed  scores  of  imitations,  perfect 
in  every  detail  that  an  ordinary  eye  could  detect, 
including  the  simulated  maker's  name  and  mark. 
What  was  involved  in  identifying  a  blade  may  be 
inferred  from  that  fact,  and  becomes  still  more 
apparent  when  it  is  noted  that  authoritative  lists 

1  See  Appendix,  note  23. 


JAPAN 

compiled  in  the  seventeenth  century  to  show  the 
forgers  classed  as  experts,  contained  3,269  names. 
To  distinguish  between  the  products  of  such  a 
multitude  of  masters  must  have  required  natural 
gifts  of  a  high  order,  and  though  throughout  the 
Military  epoch, —  that  is  to  say,  from  the  twelfth 
century  to  the  end  of  the  sixteenth, —  the  sword 
and  everything  pertaining  to  it  were  held  in  sig- 
nal honour,  the  first  expert  whose  judgment  men 
accepted  as  infallible  was  Honami  Kosetsu,  who 
flourished  in  the  time  of  the  Taiko.  Scores  had 
toiled  along  the  same  path  before  his  day,  but  he 
first  reached  the  goal,  and  his  family's  claim  to 
have  inherited  his  skill  and  the  arcana  of  his 
science  being  conceded,  the  house  of  Honami 
with  its  twelve  branches  became  from  that  time 
Japan's  classical  judges  of  sword-blades.  Inas- 
much as  his  sword  ranked  far  above  all  his  pos- 
sessions in  a  samurai's  esteem,  there  was  a  constant 
demand  for  keen  eyes  to  sift  the  fine  from  the 
false.  But  even  more  important  than  the  con- 
noisseur was  the  sharpener.  In  other  countries 
the  wielder  of  a  sword  has  always  been  expected 
to  sharpen  it  himself.  In  Japan  the  sharpener 
was  a  special  expert.  In  this  art  also  the  Honami 
family  and  its  branches  excelled. 

The  three  processes  of  producing  a  blade  were 
almost  equally  important, —  the  forging,  the  tem- 
pering, and  the  sharpening.  The  forging  was  of 
course  the  most  arduous.  Various  ceremonies 
attended  it.  The  smith  had  to  be  a  man  of  pure 

144 


ill!     UT    U/aQAJU    THiiMTa    dill*    /.    >  l*a    OVIIYAJ4 


PLAYING   BLINDMAN'S    BUFF  IN  A   SIDE   STREET    LEADING    TO    THE 

MOAT    IN   TOKYO. 


, 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

life  and  high  morality.  He  approached  his  task 
with  veneration,  offering  prayer  to  the  gods,  and 
using  charms  to  exclude  evil  influences.  Some- 
times he  employed  steel  only  ;  sometimes  steel 
and  iron  in  combination.  In  either  case  the 
forging  followed  the  same  process.  The  object 
was  to  obtain  a  fabric  consisting  of  an  infinite 
number  of  the  finest  threads  of  metal  woven  into 
a  perfectly  homogeneous  tissue.  To  that  end 
the  smith  began  by  welding  together  several 
strips  of  steel  so  as  to  form  a  rectangular  ingot, 
some  six  inches  long,  two  inches  wide,  and  half 
an  inch  thick.  This  he  heated,  and  having  cut 
it  partially  across  the  middle,  he  folded  it  back 
upon  itself,  and  then  forged  it  out  to  its  original 
size.  Having  repeated  this  process  from  twelve 
to  eighteen  times,  he  welded  several  of  such  in- 
gots together,  and  then  subjected  the  compound 
mass,  half  a  dozen  times,  to  the  same  treatment 
that  each  of  the  component  parts  had  received, 
until  finally  there  resulted  a  bar  composed  of 
some  millions  of  lamina?  of  steel,  which  was  now 
beaten  out  into  the  shape  of  the  intended  blade. 
If  an  iron  backing  was  required,  the  forger  added 
it,  either  by  enveloping  the  steel  between  two 
flanges  of  iron,  or  the  iron  between  two  flanges 
of  steel.  In  this  intricate  process  the  hammer 
of  the  forger  obeyed  the  idiosyncrasies  of  his 
style,  and  these  were  transmitted  to  the  metal, 
leaving  indications  which  to  the  eye  of  the  skilled 
connoisseur  conveyed  intelligence  such  as  one 

VOL.    II. IO  I  A  f 


']  A  P  A  N 

derives  in  every-day  life  from  the  calligraphy  of  a 
manuscript  or  the  brush-lines  of  a  picture.  Some- 
times the  forger's  fashion  showed  itself  in  a  man- 
ner perceptible  to  any  observer,  the  fibre  of  the 
steel  when  it  emerged  from  his  hands,  being  dis- 
posed in  a  pattern  like  the  grain  of  wood.1  In 
the  very  finest  class  no  iron  was  introduced,  but 
three  varieties  of  steel  were  combined  in  such  a 
manner  that  they  occupied  in  the  blade  the  exact 
positions  where  their  several  qualities  were  most 
useful.  After  the  forging  followed  the  temper- 
ing, an  art  in  itself;  sometimes  practised  by  nobles 
and  princes,  and  once  by  an  Emperor  (Go-toba). 
A  clayey  composition  —  for  which  each  master 
had  a  special  recipe  —  was  applied  to  the  whole 
blade  except  the  edge,2  which  was  then  heated 
by  passing  it  several  times  through  a  bright  char- 
coal fire.  A  certain  temperature,  estimated  by 
the  master's  eye,  having  been  developed,  the  blade 
—  its  edge  alone  still  exposed  —  was  plunged  into 
water,  of  which  also  the  temperature  had  to  be 
exactly  regulated.  The  polishing  and  sharpening 
were  the  final  operations.  The  object  here  was 
not  merely  to  produce  a  cutting  edge.  What 
had  to  be  done  was  to  polish  the  blade  in  two 
principal  planes  —  the  edge-plane  and  the  body- 
plane —  inclined  at  an  angle  to  each  other,  and 
in  a  minor  plane  —  that  of  the  point  —  inclined 
at  a  different  angle  to  the  other  two.  That  does 
not,  perhaps,  seem  very  complicated.  But  a 

1  See  Appendix,  note  24.  2  See  Appendix,  note  25. 

146 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

closer  scrutiny  must  be  made.  The  back  of  a 
Japanese  sword  is  slightly  curved,  and  the  edge  is 
not  equidistant  from  it  throughout,  approaching 
it  more  closely  at  the  point  than  at  the  hilt. 
Now  it  is  essential  that  the  edge  be  ground  so 
that  its  rate  of  approach  to  the  back  shall  be 
absolutely  uniform  from  hilt  to  point-plane,  and, 
further,  that  the  line  of  intersection  of  the  edge- 
plane  and  the  back-plane  shall  be  equidistant 
throughout  from  the  back  and  the  edge.1  Finally, 
the  edge-plane  has  to  be  slightly  convex  so  that 
the  edge  may  receive  the  fullest  support  from  the 
metal  above  it.  Considering  these  operations, 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding  that  the 
polishing  and  sharpening  of  a  sword  required 
weeks  of  labour,  and  that  only  a  few  experts  in 
each  generation  attained  perfection.  By  these, 
as  well  as  by  famous  sword-smiths,  high  rank 
and  large  emoluments  were  obtainable,  though  it 
is  not  on  record  that  noted  forgers  of  sword- 
blades  ever  amassed  riches.  They  invariably 
showed  the  trait  common  to  all  Japanese  artists, 
contempt  for  money.  Certain  of  the  blades  they 
forged  were  counted  priceless.  A  masterpiece  by 
Masamune  or  some  other  of  the  seventeen  Meijin 
(celebrities)  had  a  value  above  all  estimate.  But 
the  blades  of  lesser  craftsmen  might  be  procured 
for  sums  varying  from  eighty-five  gold  dollars  to 
four  or  five  thousand.  The  men  that  could 
accurately  identify  these  gems  had  almost  as  much 

1  See  Appendix,  note  26. 

H7 


JAPAN 

honour  as  their  makers,  and  often  the  name  of  a 
sword-smith  who  had  not  marked  his  work,  was 
fixed  by  a  connoisseur  of  a  later  generation  and 
inlaid  in  gold  upon  the  tang. 

Of  course  the  Japanese  sword  had  its  own 
vocabulary.  An  expert  speaking  of  its  qualities, 
of  the  shape  of  its  line  of  tempering,  of  the  com- 
plexion of  the  metal,  or  the  dappling  of  the  sur- 
face, and  of  numerous  other  points  perceptible  to 
trained  eyes  only,  used  language  which  conveyed 
no  meaning  to  the  uninitiated.  It  was  so  with 
everything  Japanese.  Arts  and  crafts,  customs 
and  cults,  placed  under  the  microscope  of  cen- 
turies of  loving  observation,  developed  features 
sometimes  full  of  subtle  charm,  sometimes  almost 
ludicrously  disproportionate  to  the  esteem  in 
which  they  were  held,  and  the  plastic  language 
of  the  country  made  it  possible  to  construct  for 
all  these  features  a  terminology  copious  and  pre- 
cise to  a  degree  almost  beyond  the  conception  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon,  the  facts  of  whose  daily  doings 
and  experiences  so  enormously  outnumber  their 
lexicographical  representatives.  Thus  there  are 
no  less  than  twenty-two  expressions  —  possibly 
more  —  for  the  different  curves,  sinuosities  and 
scallopings  shown  by  the  line  of  tempering, 
though,  as  has  been  shown  above,  the  form 
given  to  this  line  is  purely  a  matter  of  the  tem- 
perer's  caprice  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
quality  of  the  blade. 

The  sword  had  its  superstitions.  It  was  in- 

148 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

vested  with  subjective  qualities.  As  Excalibur, 
flashing  over  the  mere,  summoned  from  its 
depths  a  mystic  arm,  so  the  sword  of  Japan  was 
supposed  to  be  capable  of  bringing  to  its  owner 
one  of  eight  things,  good  fortune,  revenue, 
wealth,  virtue,  longevity,  reputation,  sickness,  and 
poverty.  A  classic  of  the  seventeenth  century 
denounces  such  theories  as  irrational,  and  substi- 
tutes for  them  a  creed  equally  superstitious  and 
more  illogical.  "  A  sword,"  it  says,  "  has  no  re- 
sponsibility. The  fortunes  of  the  owner  are  of  his 
own  carving.  The  fortunate  sword  will  sooner 
or  later  pass  out  of  the  possession  of  an  evil 
owner.  Otherwise  a  famous  blade  would  indeed 
be  valueless.  For  if  it  were  possible  for  a  knave 
to  procure  wealth,  dignity  or  renown  by  possess- 
ing a  fine  sword,  the  noble  weapon  would  become 
the  mere  tool  of  a  malefactor."  Thus  some  form 
of  faith  in  the  sword's  occult  potency  survived  all 
the  attacks  of  reason.  Great  families  treasured  an 
ancestral  blade  as  a  talisman,1  and  even  furnished 
a  vicarious  demonstration  of  its  potency  by  aban- 
doning themselves  on  its  loss  to  a  mood  of  help- 
lessness. There  consequently  flourished  a  class 
of  experts  professing  the  art  of  kenso,  or  ensiog- 
nomy  (if  it  be  permissible  to  coin  a  word). 
Concerning  this  art,  the  classic  quoted  above 
says :  "  The  countenance  of  a  blade  cannot  be 
read  unless  its  other  qualities  have  been  deter- 
mined in  the  main,  and  just  as  the  expert  should 

1  See  Appendix,  note  27. 

149 


JAPAN 

not  limit  his  examination  to  merely  identifying 
the  name  of  the  maker,  so  the  connoisseur  of  the 
countenance  should  not  be  content  to  consider 
the  lucky  or  unlucky  attributes  only.  The  two 
estimates  should  go  hand  in  hand.  A  sword 
being  the  product  of  the  five  elements,  wood, 
fire,  metal,  and  water,  a  fortunate  blade  cannot 
be  forged  at  will,  whatever  guerdon  be  given  to 
the  sword-smith.  There  are  good  and  bad  men 
as  also  there  are  good  and  bad  swords.  If  a 
master  be  virtuous,  his  servant  will  tread  the 
path  of  right.  If  a  captain  be  craven  and  in- 
competent, a  brave  soldier  cannot  serve  under 
him.  It  is  impossible  for  an  evil-hearted  man 
to  retain  possession  of  a  famous  sword.'*  The 
quality  of  the  blade  reflects  the  character  of 
the  owner.  In  the  age  when  this  dictum  was 
penned,  and  in  previous  centuries,  few  would 
have  been  found  to  dispute  it,  except  on  the 
ground  that  it  underrated  the  sword's  esoteric 
influences.  Many  men  declined  to  use  a  blade 
decorated  with  Buddhist  symbols ;  as  Namu 
Amida  Eutsu  (hear,  oh !  Amida  Buddha),  Hachi- 
man  Dai-Bosatsu  (great  Bodhisatva,  God  of  War), 
various  Sanscrit  texts,  the  lotus  flower,  and  so 
on.  By  association  with  a  creed  that  forbade 
the  taking  of  life,  these  symbols  seemed  unfitted 
to  figure  on  a  blade.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
was  contended  that  the  sword  being  an  in- 
strument for  preserving  peace  as  well  as  for 
killing  a  foe,  its  connection  with  the  re- 

150 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

ligion  of  tranquillity  was  not  incongruous. 
Either  belief  illustrates  the  mood  of  the  soldier 
towards  his  sword.  A  famous  blade  served  as 
a  second  conscience  to  its  owner ;  he  sought  to 
live  up  to  the  attributes  it  was  supposed  to  pos- 
sess ;  and  when  a  sovereign  or  a  feudal  chief 
bestowed  on  a  subject  or  a  vassal  a  sword  that 
bore  the  name  of  a  great  maker  and  had  been 
cherished  through  generations  in  the  house  of 
the  donor,  the  gift  carried  with  it  a  sacred  trust 
and  an  inspiration  that  nerved  the  recipient  to 
noble  deeds.  Such  esoterics  could  not  survive  in 
the  cold  atmosphere  of  nineteenth-century  criti- 
cism, but  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  their 
influence  upon  the  Japanese  did  not  make  for 
good. 

One  interesting  problem  with  regard  to  the 
Japanese  sword  seems  unlikely  to  be  definitely 
settled,  namely,  its  origin.  An  authority  whose 
dictum  ought  to  carry  great  weight  dismisses  the 
question  curtly  by  saying  that  "  the  swords  of 
Japan  are  the  highly  perfected  working  out  of  a 
general  Indo-Persian  type,"  and  Japanese  histo- 
rians assert  that  the  one-edged  sword,  the  katana, 
for  which  their  country  is  famous,  was  forged 
for  the  first  time  in  the  seventh  century  by  divid- 
ing the  old  two-edged  Chinese  sword,  the  ken 
(or  fsurugi).  Concerning  the  former  view,  it 
must  be  confessed  that  the  alleged  resemblance 
between  a  Japanese  sword  and  all  recognised 
types  of  the  Persian  cimeter  defies  ordinary  ob- 


JAPAN 

servation.  Concerning  the  latter,  though  it  may 
well  be  that  the  straight  two-edged  sword  of 
ancient  Japan  was  derived  from  China  or  Korea, 
the  theory  that  the  single-edged  blade  was  ob- 
tained by  splitting  the  double-edged  cannot  be 
reconciled  with  archaeological  evidence.  Certain 
facts  pertinent  to  this  matter  are  tolerably  well 
assured.  The  oldest  swords  of  Japan,  the  bronze 
blades  found  in  primeval  burial  mounds,  bear  nd 
resemblance  whatever  to  the  straight  two-edged 
ken,  but  are  essentially  of  the  classical  Grecian 
type,  a  close  approximation  to  the  well-known 
leaf  shape  with  central  ridge.  In  the  dolmens, 
on  the  other  hand,  —  that  is  to  say,  in  the  sepul- 
chres of  the  Japanese  during  the  iron  age  which 
succeeded  the  bronze  era  —  none  of  these  leaf- 
shaped  bronze  blades  is  found :  only  single-edged 
straight  swords  occur  which  differ  from  the 
orthodox  katana  solely  in  being  altogether  with- 
out curvature,  and  in  sometimes  having  a  ring 
cast  on  the  end  of  the  handle.  There  is  strong 
reason  to  think  that  the  two-edged  ken  came 
to  Japan  in  the  train  of  Buddhism,  and  if  so, 
the  sequence  of  facts  is  this :  first,  bronze  leaf- 
shaped  double-edged  blades,  which  remained  in 
use  up  to  the  third  or  fourth  century  before 
Christ ;  then  a  single-edged  iron  blade,  almost 
identical  with  the  modern  katana,  except  that  it 
was  without  curve,  which  continued  to  be  the 
soldier's  weapon  up  to  the  sixth  century ;  then  a 
double-edged  sword,  imported  simultaneously  with 

152 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

Buddhism  and  invariably  adopted  as  the  Bud- 
dhist type,  but  never  universally  used  throughout 
Japan ;  and  finally,  in  the  seventh  century,  an 
improved  form  of  the  iron  single-edged  blade 
which  had  preceded  the  Buddhist  ken.  Accord- 
ing to  this  analysis,  strictly  consistent  with  the 
best  evidence  available,  the  katana  came  to  Japan 
with  the  dolmen-builders,  of  whom  we  have 
already  spoken  in  a  previous  chapter,  and  is 
therefore  to  be  regarded  as  essentially  the  sword 
of  the  progenitors  of  a  section  of  the  present 
Japanese  race. 

A  Japanese  soldier  carried  at  least  two  swords, 
a  long  and  a  short,  or,  in  his  own  language,  "  a 
great  and  a  small"  (dai-sho}.  Their  scabbards 
of  lacquered  wood  were  thrust  into  his  girdle  — 
not  slung  from  it  —  and  fastened  in  their  place 
by  cords  of  plaited  silk.  Sometimes  he  increased 
the  number  of  weapons  to  three,  four,  or  even 
five  before  going  into  battle,  and  the  array  was 
supplemented  by  a  dagger  concealed  in  the 
bosom.  Only  men  of  the  military  class  had  the 
right  to  wear  two  swords.  A  farmer  or  an 
artisan,  when  starting  on  a  journey,  or  with 
special  permission,  might  carry  a  short  sword 
(waki-zasht),  but  any  abuse  of  that  exception 
involved  severe  punishment.  This  custom  of 
wearing  two  swords  is  peculiar  to  Japan.  The 
short  sword  was  not  employed  in  actual  combat. 
Its  use  was  to  cut  off  an  enemy's  head  after  over- 
throwing him,  and  it  also  served  the  defeated 

'53 


JAPAN 

soldier  in  his  last  resort,  suicide.  In  general  the 
long  sword  did  not  measure  more  than  three 
feet,  including  the  hilt,  but  some  were  five  feet 
long  and  some  even  seven,  these  huge  weapons 
being  specially  affected  by  swashbucklers  and  vag- 
abond soldiers.  Considering  that  the  scabbard, 
being  fastened  to  the  girdle,  had  no  play,  the 
feat  of  drawing  a  nagatachi,  as  the  very  long 
sword  was  called,  demanded  special  aptitude ; 
yet  there  were  men  who  achieved  it  in  a  sitting 
posture.  A  Chinese  historian,  referring  to  the 
Japanese  invasion  of  Korea  at  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  says  of  the  samurai  in  action 
that  "  he  brandished  a  five-foot  blade  with  such 
rapidity  that  nothing  could  be  seen  except  a 
white  sheen  of  steel,  the  soldier  himself  being 
altogether  invisible."  The  unsheathing  of  the 
sword  was  always  counted  an  act  of  extreme 
gravity.  It  signified  deadly  intention,  and  when 
once  the  blade  had  been  exposed,  to  return  it 
unused  to  the  scabbard  insulted  the  weapon  and 
convicted  its  wearer  of  unsoldierlike  precipitancy. 
Etiquette  required  that  the  long  sword  should  be 
removed  from  the  girdle  before  entering  the 
apartment  of  a  superior  or  a  friend,  but  the  waki- 
zashi  remained  in  its  place. 

The  samurai  of  old  Japan  cannot  be  dissociated 
from  his  sword.  He  himself  called  it  his  soul. 
Therefore  it  has  been  spoken  of  here  at  some 
length.  But  the  average  foreigner  takes  little 
interest  in  the  story  of  the  blade  or  the  traditions 

J54 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

and  superstitions  connected  with  it.  For  him 
the  attractive  part  is  the  furniture  of  the  weapon ; 
the  chiselling  of  the  guard  as  well  as  of  the  ad- 
juncts of  the  hilt,  and  the  remarkable  skill  with 
which  various  metals  are  combined  for  the  deco- 
ration of  these  objects.  There  has  been  no  finer 
work  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  The  attention  it 
attracts  in  Europe  and  America  is  still  very  inade- 
quate. A  happy  description  calls  the  furniture 
of  the  sword  the  jewelry  of  the  samurai.  He  did 
not  deck  himself  with  rings,  or  studs,  or  chains,  or 
gemmed  buckles,  or  any  of  the  gewgaws  affected 
in  other  countries.  But  upon  the  mountings  of 
his  sword,  and,  in  a  lesser  degree,  upon  the  orna- 
mentation of  his  armour,  he  lavished  loving  care. 
From  the  fourteenth  century  to  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth,  a  great  number  of  artists  devoted 
themselves  wholly  to  work  of  that  kind,  and  it  is 
a  matter  of  lasting  regret  that  their  excellent  skill 
was  not  employed  to  produce  objects  capable  of 
appealing  to  a  wider  range  of  taste.  This  subject 
will  be  discussed  in  another  place,  but  it  may  be 
noted  here  that  if  the  shadow  of  the  sword  falls 
darkly  over  the  life  of  mediaeval  Japan,  much  must 
be  forgiven  it  for  the  sake  of  its  strongly  incen- 
tive influence  upon  the  applied  art  of  the  nation. 
When  the  motive  forces  of  Japanese  artistic 
progress  are  catalogued,  the  majority  are  found 
to  emanate  from  Buddhism,  but  militarism  stands 
second  on  the  list,  and  by  no  means  a  remote 
second.  Each  feudal  principality  was  a  compet- 

155 


JAPAN 

ing  centre  of  art  influence,  and  the  sword  of 
every  samurai  advertised  the  standard  that  had 
been  reached  by  the  glyptic  experts  in  his  chiefs 
dominions. 

Spear  and  halberd  were  among  the  weapons  of 
the  ancient  Japanese  as  well  as  sword  and  bow. 
The  oldest  form  of  spear  (hoko)  was  derived  from 
China.  Its  handle  measured  about  six  feet  and 
its  blade  eight  inches,  the  latter  being  sometimes 
leaf-shaped,  sometimes  wave-edged  like  a  Malay 
kris.  At  the  point  of  junction  of  blade  and  hilt 
a  sickle-shaped  horn  projected  on  one  side  or  on 
both,  showing  that  the  prime  object  of  the  weapon 
was  to  thrust  back  an  enemy.  In  fact  the  hoko 
served  almost  exclusively  for  guarding  palisades 
and  gates.  In  the  fourteenth  century  a  true 
lance  (yari)  came  into  use.  Its  length  varied 
greatly  and  it  had  a  hog-backed  blade,  about  five 
inches  long,  tempered  so  finely  as  almost  to  rival 
the  sword  in  quality.  This  too  was  a  Chinese 
type,  and,  like  the  hoko,  its  first  employment  did 
not  extend  beyond  operations  of  defence,  but  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  Military  epoch  it  acquired 
greater  importance.  The  halberd  also  came  from 
China.  The  term  "  halberd "  is  a  defective 
translation,  for  the  Japanese  nagi-nata  (literally, 
long  sword)  was  not  a  pole  terminating  in  a 
battle-axe  and  spear-head  as  the  English  name 
implies.  It  was  a  cimeter-like  blade,  some 
three  feet  in  length,  fixed  on  a  slightly  longer 
haft.  Originally  the  warlike  monks  alone  em- 

.56 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

ployed  this  weapon,  but  from  the  twelfth  century, 
when  the  Minamoto  and  the  Taira  clans  began 
their  long  struggle,  the  nagi-nata  found  much 
favour  among  military  men,  its  combined  powers 
of  cutting  and  thrusting  being  fully  recognised. 
History  has  established  the  truth  that  the  effective 
use  of  the  point  in  sword-play  is  an  evidence  of 
advanced  skill  and  superior  civilisation.  The 
Japanese  bore  witness  to  the  fact  by  their  fond- 
ness for  the  nagi-nata.  Yet  it  never  competed 
seriously  with  the  single-edged  katana,  and  it 
ultimately  became  the  weapon  of  women  and 
priests  only.  That,  however,  was  not  an  unim- 
portant role,  for  the  priesthood  wielded  at  one 
time  great  military  power,  and  the  wife  or 
daughter  of  a  samurai  was  always  expected  to  prove 
her  courage  and  martial  capacity  at  any  crisis  in 
the  career  of  her  husband  or  father.  In  her  hands 
the  nagi-nata  often  accomplished  signal  deeds,  and 
even  in  the  present  day  there  are  few  more  grace- 
ful or  interesting  spectacles  to  be  seen  in  Japan 
than  the  manipulation  of  this  formidable  weapon 
by  a  highly  trained  female  fencer. 

Not  much  need  be  said  about  the  busbfs 
armour.  Speaking  broadly,  it  may  be  described 
as  plate  armour,  but  the  essential  difference  be- 
tween it  and  the  Norman  type  was  that  whereas 
the  latter  took  its  shape  from  the  costume  of 
the  period,  the  former  bore  no  resemblance,  and 
never  was  designated  to  bear  any  resemblance,  to 
ordinary  garments.  Hence  the  only  changes  that 

157 


JAPAN 

occurred  in  Japanese  armour  from  generation  to 
generation  had  their  origin  in  improved  methods 
of  construction.  In  general  appearance  it  differed 
from  the  panoply  of  all  other  nations.  To  its 
essential  parts  we  may  with  propriety  apply 
the  European  terms  helmet,  corselet,  taches, 
epaulieres,  brassarts,  cuissarts,  and  greaves.  But 
individually  and  in  combination  these  parts  were 
not  at  all  like  the  originals  of  the  Occidental 
terms.  Perhaps  the  easiest  way  to  describe  the 
difference  is  to  say  that  whereas  a  Norman 
Knight  seemed  to  be  clad  in  a  suit  of  metal 
clothes,  a  Japanese  bushi  looked  as  if  he  wore 
protective  curtains.  The  Japanese  armour  was, 
in  fact,  suspended  from  the  person  rather  than 
fitted  to  it.  It  had  only  one  element  counter- 
parted  in  the  European  suit,  namely,  a  tabard, 
which,  in  the  case  of  men  of  rank,  was  made  of 
the  richest  brocade.  Iron  or  leather  were  the 
chief  materials,  and  as  the  lamina?  were  strung 
together  with  a  vast  number  of  coloured  cords  — 
silk  or  leather  —  an  appearance  of  considerable 
brilliancy  was  produced.  Ornamentation  did 
not  stop  there.  Plating  and  inlaying  with  gold 
and  silver  were  freely  resorted  to,  and  exquisitely 
finished  decoration  in  chiselled,  inlaid,  and  re- 
pousse work  was  profusely  applied  to  the  helmet 
and  its  appendages,  the  corselet,  the  epaulieres, 
and  the  brassarts.  On  the  whole,  however, 
despite  the  highly  artistic  character  of  its 
ornamentation,  the  loose,  pendulous  nature  of 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

Japanese  armour  detracted  greatly  from  its  work- 
manlike aspect,  especially  when  the  horo  was 
added,  —  a  curious  appendage  in  the  shape  of 
a  curtain  of  fine  transparent  silk,  which  was 
either  stretched  in  front  between  the  horns  of 
the  helmet  and  the  top  of  the  bow  or  worn  on 
the  shoulders  and  back,  to  turn  the  point  of  an 
arrow.  A  true  bushi  observed  the  strict  rules  of 
etiquette  with  regard  even  to  the  garments  worn 
under  his  armour,  and  it  was  part  of  his  soldierly 
capacity  to  be  able  to  bear  the  great  weight  of 
the  whole  without  any  loss  of  activity,  though 
the  feat  would  be  impossible  to  any  untrained 
man  of  modern  days.  Common  soldiers,  of 
course,  who  went  on  foot,  wore  much  scantier 
protection.  A  comparatively  light  helmet  and 
corselet  generally  constituted  their  panoply. 

The  Japanese  never  had  a  war-horse  worthy 
of  the  name.  The  little  misshapen  ponies  which 
carried  them  to  battle  showed  some  qualities  of 
hardiness  and  endurance,  but  were  so  deficient  in 
stature  and  massiveness  that  when  mounted  by 
a  man  in  voluminous  armour,  they  looked  pain- 
fully puny.  Nothing  is  known  of  the  early 
Japanese  saddle,  but  at  the  beginning  of  historic 
times  it  approximated  closely  to  the  Chinese 
type.  By  and  by,  however,  a  purely  Japanese 
shape  was  designed.  It  consisted  of  a  wooden 
frame  so  constructed  that  a  padded  numnah  could 
be  fastened  to  it.  Galled  backs  or  withers  were 
unknown  with  such  a  saddle ;  it  fitted  any  horse. 

'59 


JAPAN 

The  stirrup,  originally  a  simple  affair  resembling 
that  of  China  and  Europe,  afterwards  took  the 
form  of  a  solid  half  shoe-sole  with  toe  turned 
up.  Both  the  stirrup  and  the  saddle-frame  were 
often  of  exquisite  workmanship ;  covered  with 
the  richest  gold  lacquer  (aventurine  or  with  orna- 
mentation in  relief),  or  inlaid  with  gold,  silver, 
or  mother-of-pearl.  In  the  latter  half  of  the 
Military  epoch  chain  armour  was  adopted  for 
the  horse,  and  his  head  was  protected  by  a  mon- 
ster-faced mask  of  iron. 

Flags  were  used  in  battle  as  well  as  on  cere- 
monial occasions.  Allusion  has  already  been 
made  to  the  red  and  white  flags  of  the  Taira  and 
the  Minamoto.  There  were  also  streamers  em- 
blazoned with  various  legends,  or  with  figures  of 
the  sun,  the  moon,  a  dragon,  a  tiger,  a  hawk, 
a  bear,  and  so  on.1  The  Minamoto  men  often 
carried  a  flag  with  the  design  of  a  dove,  since 
that  bird  was  the  messenger  of  their  tutelary 
deity,  the  god  of  battles.  A  common  custom, 
also,  was  to  have  a  small  flag  thrust  into  the 
girdle.  It  would  seem  that  the  use  of  flags  was 
derived  from  China,  but  the  Japanese  never  imi- 
tated the  extravagant  profusion  of  the  Chinese 
practice. 

Fans  with  iron  ribs  were  carried  by  command- 
ing officers,  and  signals  to  advance  or  retreat  were 
given  by  beating  metal  gongs  and  drums  and 
blowing  conches.  During  the  Military  epoch 

1  See  Appendix,  note  28. 

1 60 


,1'Ah'e.AWA'A    TA    JJaa    iU4M3T 

bn£  OY^oT  nsawtsd  agfilliv  A 


TEMPLE   BELL   AT   KAWASAKI, 

A  village  between  Tokyo  and  Yokohama. 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

it  was  considered  proper  that  a  campaign  should 
be  opened  or  a  contest  preluded  by  a  human  sac- 
rifice to  the  god  of  war  ;  the  victim  at  this  "  rite 
of  blood "  (chi-matsuri}  being  generally  a  con- 
demned criminal  or  a  prisoner.  Other  prelimi- 
naries also  had  to  be  respected.  Men  went  about 
the  business  of  killing  each  other  in  an  orderly 
and  punctilious  manner.  Ambuscades  and  sur- 
prises played  their  part,  of  course,  but  pitched 
battles  were  the  general  rule,  and  it  was  de  rigueur 
that  an  intimation  of  intention  to  attack  should  be 
given  by  discharging  a  "  singing  arrow."  There- 
after the  attacking  army,  taking  the  word  from 
its  commander-in-chief,  raised  a  shout  of  "  Ei ! 
Ei ! "  to  which  the  other  side  replied,  and,  all  the 
formalities  having  been  thus  satisfied,  the  fight 
commenced. 

Tactics  were  of  the  crudest  description  in  the 
first  part  of  the  Military  epoch,  and  discipline 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  existed  at  all.  An 
army  consisted  of  a  congeries  of  little  bands  each 
under  the  orders  of  a  chief  who  considered  him- 
self independent,  and  instead  of  subordinating 
his  movements  to  a  general  plan,  struck  a  blow 
however  he  pleased,  thinking  much  rriore  of  his 
own  reputation  as  a  warrior  than  of  the  interests 
of  the  cause  for  which  he  fought.  From  time 
immemorial  a  romantic  value  has  attached  in 
Japan  to  the  "  first "  of  anything  :  the  "  first 
snow  "  of  the  winter  ;  the  "  first  water  "  drawn 
from  the  well  on  New  Year's  Day  ;  the  "  first 

VOL.    II.  II  1  6  I 


JAPAN 

blossom"  of  the  spring;  the  "first  note  of  the 
nightingale."  So  in  war,  the  "  first  to  ride  up  to 
the  foe,"  or  the  "  wielder  of  the  first  spear,"  was 
held  in  high  honour,  and  the  bushi  strove  for 
that  distinction  as  his  principal  duty.  It  neces- 
sarily resulted,  too,  not  only  from  the  nature  of 
the  weapons  employed,  but  also  from  the  immense 
labour  devoted  by  the  true  bushi  to  perfecting 
himself  in  their  use,  that  displays  of  individual 
prowess  were  deemed  the  chief  object  in  a  battle. 
Some  tactical  formations  borrowed  from  China 
were,  indeed,  familiar  to  the  Japanese,  but  the 
intelligent  use  of  these  and  their  modification  to 
suit  the  circumstances  of  the  time  belonged  to  the 
Ashikaga  epoch  and  to  the  great  generals  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  Prior  to  that 
time  a  battle  resembled  a  monster  fencing  match. 
Men  fought  as  individuals,  not  as  units  of  a  tacti- 
cal formation,  and  the  engagement  consisted  of  a 
number  of  personal  duels,  all  in  simultaneous  prog- 
ress. It  was  the  bush? s  habit  to  proclaim  his 
name  and  titles  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy, 
sometimes  adding  from  his  own  record  or  his 
father's  any  details  that  might  tend  to  dispirit  his 
foes.  Then  some  one  advancing  to  cross  weapons 
with  him,  would  perform  the  same  ceremony  of 
self-introduction,  and  if  either  found  anything  to 
upbraid  in  the  other's  antecedents  or  family  his- 
tory, he  did  not  fail  to  make  loud  reference  to  it, 
such  a  device  being  counted  efficacious  as  a  means 
of  disturbing  the  hearer's  sang-froid.  The  duel- 

162 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

lists  could  reckon  on  finishing  their  fight  undis- 
turbed, but  the  victor  frequently  had  to  endure  the 
combined  assault  of  a  number  of  the  vanquished's 
comrades  or  retainers.  Of  course  a  skilled  swords- 
man did  not  necessarily  seek  a  single  combat :  he 
was  ready  to  ride  into  the  thick  of  the  foe  without 
discrimination,  and  a  group  of  common  soldiers 
never  hesitated  to  make  a  united  attack  upon  a 
mounted  officer  when  they  found  him  disengaged. 
But  the  general  feature  of  a  battle  was  individual 
contests,  and  when  the  fighting  ceased,  each  bushi 
proceeded  to  the  tent1  of  the  commander-in-chief 
and  submitted  for  inspection  the  heads  of  those 
he  had  killed. 

The  disadvantages  of  such  a  mode  of  fighting 
were  demonstrated  for  the  first  time  when  the 
Mongols  invaded  Japan  in  1 274.  The  Japanese 
had  six  years  to  prepare  for  the  invasion,  and 
they  knew  approximately  the  point  at  which  it 
would  impinge.  What  they  did  was  to  crown 
the  heights  along  the  shore  with  parapets  of  loose 
stones,  and  wherever  the  configuration  of  the 
ground  did  not  afford  the  necessary  elevation, 
they  raised  embankments  to  support  the  parapet. 
The  latter  varied  in  height  from  two  feet  to  six, 
so  as  to  afford  shelter  without  impeding  archery. 
Its  trace  showed  no  idea  of  flank  defence,  shelter 
being  the  sole  object.  When  the  flotilla  of  the 
invaders  appeared,  no  attempt  was  made  to  oppose 
their  landing:  the  moment  of  supreme  danger 

1  See  Appendix,  note  29. 

'63 


JAPAN 

for  an  army  carried  over  sea  to  the  attack  of  a 
foreign  country  was  suffered  to  pass  unutilised. 
In  fact,  the  Japanese  had  not  even  a  rudimentary 
knowledge  of  the  science  of  coast  defence.  The 
Mongols  and  their  Korean  allies  stepped  ashore 
safely,  marshalled  their  ranks  and  advanced  in 
phalanx,  protecting  themselves  effectually  with 
their  pavises.  They  do  not  appear  to  have  been 
much  distressed  by  either  the  cross-bows  or  the 
ordinary  bows  of  the  defenders,  but  they  covered 
their  own  advance  with  a  host  of  archers  shoot- 
ing clouds  of  poisoned  arrows.  The  Japanese 
never  at  any  time  of  their  history  used  poisoned 
arrows :  they  despised  them  as  depraved  and  in- 
human weapons.  The  Mongolian  shafts  harassed 
them  terribly.  Still  they  adhered  to  the  pre- 
scribed etiquette.  A  humming  arrow  was  shot 
by  way  of  warning.  The  Mongols  greeted  it 
with  a  shout  of  derision.  Then  some  of  the 
best  fighters  among  the  Japanese  advanced  in 
their  usual  dignified  leisurely  manner  and  for- 
mulated the  traditional  challenge.  But  the 
Mongol  phalanx,  instead  of  sending  out  a  single 
warrior  to  answer  the  defiance,  opened  their 
ranks,  enclosed  the  challenger,  and  cut  him  to 
pieces.  The  invaders  moved  in  unchanging 
formation,  obeying  signals  from  their  command- 
ing officer,  who  watched  their  evolutions  from  an 
eminence.  The  Japanese  soon  ceased  to  sacri- 
fice themselves  piecemeal.  A  hundred  horsemen 
dashed  simultaneously  at  the  phalanx.  Ninety- 

164 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

nine  were  slain,  and  the  leader  alone  returned 
alive.  Finally  the  whole  Japanese  force  attacked 
in  unison,  and  the  Mongols  withdrew  to  their 
ships,  covering  their  retreat  with  guns,  then  en- 
tirely novel  to  the  Japanese.  A  storm  saved  the 
country  on  that  occasion,  and  when  the  Mongols 
came  again,  seven  years  later,  they  met  with  a 
different  reception.  Although  their  numerical 
strength  had  enormously  increased,  they  never 
succeeded  in  effecting  a  landing.  The  Japanese 
dashed  at  their  fleet  time  and  again,  until  the 
Mongols  huddled  together  and  assumed  the  de- 
fensive. The  boats  of  the  combatants  differed 
greatly.  The  invaders  had  large,  decked  vessels, 
with  very  high  prows,  a  clumsy  capstan  perched 
at  the  stern,  and  oars  passing  through  holes  in 
the  sides.  They  were  also  provided  with  a  kind 
of  artillery  which  is  said  to  have  discharged  iron 
balls  with  a  thunder-like  detonation,  striking 
down  scores  of  Japanese,  breaching  their  flimsy 
parapets,  and  setting  their  watch-towers  on  fire. 
The  rowers  were  protected  by  bulwarks  of  timber 
and  matting,  and  at  the  prow  there  was  an  ar- 
rangement of  shields  over  which  arrows  could  be 
discharged.  The  Japanese,  on  the  contrary,  had 
very  small,  open  boats  without  any  protection 
for  the  rowers,  who  worked  in  a  group  at  the 
stern  and  were  cruelly  exposed  at  the  time  of 
retreat.  But  the  bushi  themselves  plied  the  oars, 
and  in  these  little  craft  handfuls  of  intrepid  men 
rushed  again  and  again  to  the  assault  of  the 


JAPAN 

enemy's  fleet.  In  fact,  the  tactics  of  the  Japanese 
had  undergone  a  complete  change  in  the  interval 
between  the  two  Mongol  invasions.  On  the  first 
occasion  no  attempt  was  made  to  oppose  the 
landing  of  the  enemy,  and  in  the  engagements 
that  ensued  on  shore  the  Japanese  frittered  away 
their  strength  by  pursuing  the  disjointed  methods 
of  fighting  peculiar  to  their  own  military  canons. 
On  the  second  occasion,  the  Mongols,  despite 
their  artillery,  their  catapults,  and  their  great 
host,  never  succeeded  in  setting  foot  upon  land. 
Held  at  bay  by  a  series  of  continuous  and 
desperate  attacks,  insignificant  as  displays  of 
national  force,  but  of  deadly  efficacy  and  most 
harassing  character,  the  huge  flotilla  found 
nothing  better  than  to  lie  huddled  together, 
the  big  ships  protecting  the  small,  and  the 
whole  incapable  of  offensive  action.  No 
tricks  of  manoeuvre  came  into  play.  The 
Japanese  simply  laid  boat  alongside  boat,  and 
committed  the  rest  to  sword  and  halberd.  It 
was  a  method  very  effective  against  the  compara- 
tively inexpert  and  clumsily  equipped  Mongols 
and  Chinese,  accustomed  to  fight  in  phalanx 
only.  From  the  moment  that  a  skilled  Japanese 
swordsman  or  halberdier  gained  a  footing  on  a 
ship  crowded  with  soldiers  of  the  kind  that 
fought  for  Kublai  Khan,  swjft  carnage  followed 
inevitably.  Yet  certainly  the  highest  order  of 
valour  presided  at  these  onsets  when  one  or  two 
little  boats,  their  occupants  armed  with  bow,  hal- 

166 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

herd,  and  sword  only,  rowed  out  to  attack  a  fleet 
of  fifteen  hundred  war-junks  provided  with  cul- 
verins  and  catapults.  Pictorial  scrolls  painted  by 
Tosa  artists  of  the  era  show  some  of  these  boats, 
dashing  seaward  on  their  reckless  errand,  and  ap- 
pend the  names  of  the  soldiers  seated  in  them,  as 
well  as  the  issue  of  each  venture.  In  no  case  can 
more  than  ten  fighting  men  be  counted  in  one 
boat.  Their  wooden  shields,  when  they  carry 
such  defences,  hang  over  the  gunwales ;  at  the 
bow  kneels  the  banner-bearer,  raising  aloft  a  long 
pennant,  and  in  the  stern  half-a-dozen  men, 
sometimes  wearing  corselets  but  generally  with- 
out any  protection  whatever,  bare-armed  and 
bare-shouldered,  despite  the  enemy's  poisoned 
arrows,  strain  desperately  at  the  oars.  To  their 
insignificant  dimensions  and  the  rapidity  of  their 
movements  these  boats  evidently  owed  their  fre- 
quent immunity  from  the  balls  of  iron  and  stone 
discharged  by  the  Mongol  fleet.  It  is  the  only 
historical  instance  of  victory's  resting  with  sword, 
spear,  and  bow  against  gunpowder  and  bullet.  It 
also  illustrates  the  devoted  courage  as  well  as  the 
versatility  of  the  Japanese  bus  hi.  He  appreci- 
ated that  he  must  modify  his  methods,  and  not 
only  abandon  the  old  etiquette  of  the  battle  on 
shore,  but  also  play  the  part  of  assailant,  at%any 
risk,  in  order  to  prevent  the  landing  of  a  power- 
ful foe. 

Although    the    advantages    of    preventing    an 
enemy  from  massing  his  strength  were  thus  recog- 


JAPAN 

nised,  the  Japanese  themselves  did  not  generally 
obey  the  principle  of  the  phalanx,  though  they 
sometimes  copied  its  formation.  Individual  prow- 
ess continued  to  be  the  prominent  factor  in  battles 
down  to  a  comparatively  recent  period.  The  great 
captains  Takeda  Shingen  and  Uyesugi  Kenshin, 
who  flourished  during  the  first  half  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  are  supposed  to  have  been  Japan's 
pioneer  tacticians.  They  certainly  appreciated 
the  value  of  a  formation  in  which  the  action  of 
the  individual  should  be  subordinated  to  the  unity 
of  the  whole.  But  when  it  is  remembered  that 
fire-arms  had  already  been  in  the  hands  of  the 
Japanese  for  many  years,  and  that  they  had 
means  of  acquainting  themselves  with  the  tactics 
of  Europe  through  their  intercourse  with  the 
Dutch,  it  is  remarkable  that  the  changes  attrib- 
uted to  Takeda  and  Uyesugi  were  not  more 
drastic.  Speaking  broadly,  what  they  did  was 
to  organise  a  column  with  the  musketeers  and 
archers  in  front;  the  spearmen,  halberdiers,  and 
swordsmen  in  the  second  line ;  the  cavalry  in  the 
third  line ;  the  commanding  officer  in  the  rear, 
and  the  drums  and  standards  in  the  centre.  The 
spearmen  were  marshalled  according  to  the  length 
of  their  weapons,  the  long  spears  in  front,  the 
short  in  the  rear.  Incidentally  the  power  of  the 
Japanese  bow  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  when 
the  range  proved  too  great  for  the  fire-arms  of  the 
time,  the  musketeers  stood  aside  and  the  archers 
took  their  place.  At  close  quarters  the  spears 

168 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

became  highly  effective  weapons,  and  in  the  days 
of  Hideyoshi,  the  Taiko,  combined  flank  and 
front  attacks  by  bands  of  spearmen  were  used  by 
that  resourceful  commander.  The  importance 
of  a  strong  reserve  also  received  recognition,  and 
in  theory,  at  all  events,  a  tolerably  intelligent 
system  of  tactics  was  adopted.  But  individual 
skill  continued  to  dominate  the  situation.  A 
master  of  the  sword  or  the  halberd  towered  so 
far  above  his  less  expert  fellows  that  he  refused 
to  act  in  unison  with  them,  and  it  was  not  until 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  that  the 
doctrine  of  strictly  disciplined  action  obtained  prac- 
tical vogue.  Yamaga  Soko  is  said  to  have  been  the 
successful  inculcator  of  this  principle.  From 
his  time  the  most  approved  tactical  formation 
was  known  as  the  Tamaga-riu  (Yamaga  style), 
though  it  showed  no  innovation  other  than  strict 
subordination  of  each  unit  to  the  general  plan. 
Yamaga  is  now  remembered  rather  as  the  mili- 
tary instructor  of  Oishi  Kuranosuke,  the  leader 
of  the  Forty-seven  Ronin,  than  as  the  founder 
of  a  new  school  of  tactics.  Perhaps  the  former 
is  his  better  title  to  renown,  for  his  military 
genius  was  never  subjected  to  a  practical  test. 

This  subject  might  be  dismissed  by  saying  that, 
prior  to  the  second  half  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, the  samurai  was  everything,  the  system 
nothing  from  a  tactical  point  of  view,  and  that 
strategy  was  chiefly  a  matter  of  deceptions,  sur- 
prises, and  ambushes.  But  it  must  not  be  sup- 

169 


JAPAN 

posed  that  there  were  no  "  classical  principles." 
The  student  of  European  military  history  searches 
in  vain  for  the  "  rules  and  maxims  of  war,"  so 
often  invoked  by  glib  critics,  but  the  student  of 
Japanese  history  is  more  successful.  Here,  as  in 
virtually  every  field  of  things  Japanese,  retrospect 
discovers  the  ubiquitous  Chinaman.  Sung  and 
'Ng  (called  in  Japan  "  Son  "  and  "  Go  "),  Chinese 
generals  of  the  third  century  after  Christ,  were 
the  Jomini  and  the  Hamley  of  their  eras,  and 
their  treatises  continued  to  be  the  classics  of  Far- 
Eastern  captains  through  all  generations.  Yoshit- 
sune,  in  the  twelfth  century,  deceived  a  loving 
girl  in  order  to  obtain  a  copy  of  Sung's  work 
which  her  father  had  in  his  possession,  and  Ya- 
maga,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  he  set 
himself  to  compose  a  book  on  tactics,  derived  his 
materials  almost  entirely  from  the  monographs 
of  the  two  Chinese  generals.  There  is  proof  that 
these  treatises  came  into  the  hands  of  the  Japan- 
ese in  the  eighth  century,  when  the  celebrated 
Kibi  no  Mabi  went  to  study  civilisation  in  the 
Middle  Kingdom,  just  as  his  successors  of  the 
nineteenth  century  went  to  study  Occidental 
civilisation  in  Europe  and  America.  Thence- 
forth "  Son "  and  "  Go  "  became  household 
words  among  Japanese  soldiers.  Their  vol- 
umes were  to  the  samurai  what  the  Mahslyana 
Sutra  was  to  the  Buddhist.  They  were  believed 
to  have  collected  whatever  of  good  had  preceded 
them,  and  to  have  forecast  whatever  of  good  the 

170 


WEAPONS    AND    OPERATIONS 

future  might  produce.  Something  of  that  credit 
they  certainly  deserved,  for  their  principles  are 
not  yet  out  of  date :  "  An  army  undertaking  an 
offensive  campaign  must  be  twice  as  numerous  as 
the  enemy.  A  force  investing  a  fortress  should 
be  numerically  ten  times  the  garrison.  Troops 
for  escalade  should  muster  five  for  every  one 
of  their  foes.  When  the  adversary  holds  high 
ground,  turn  his  flank ;  do  not  deliver  a  frontal 
attack.  When  he  has  a  mountain  or  a  river 
behind  him,  cut  his  lines  of  communication.  If 
he  deliberately  assumes  a  position  from  which 
victory  is  his  only  escape,  hold  him  there  but  do 
not  molest  him.  If  you  can  surround  him,  leave 
one  route  open  for  his  escape.1  Be  warned  of  an 
ambush  when  you  see  birds  soaring  in  alarm,  and 
if  animals  break  cover  in  your  direction,  look  out 
for  an  onset.  When  you  have  to  cross  a  river, 
post  your  advance-guard  and  your  rear-guard  at  a 
distance  from  the  banks  and  never  approach  with 
the  bulk  of  your  troops.  When  the  enemy  has 
to  cross  a  river,  let  him  get  well  engaged  in  the 
operation  before  you  strike  at  him.  If  a  marsh 
has  to  be  traversed,  make  celerity  your  first  object. 
Pass  no  copse,  enter  no  ravine,  nor  approach  any 
thicket  until  your  scouts  have  explored  it  fully." 
Such  precepts  are  multiplied,  and  there  is  much 
about  stratagems,  deceptions,  and,  above  all,  the 
employment  of  spies.  But  when  they  discuss 
tactical  formations,  these  ancient  authors  do  not 

1  See  Appendix,  note  30. 


JAPAN 

seem  to  have  contemplated  anything  like  rapid, 
well-ordered  changes  of  mobile,  highly  trained 
masses  of  men  from  one  formation  to  another,  or 
their  quick  transfer  from  point  to  point  of  a 
battle-field.  The  basis  of  their  tactics  is  the 
Book  of  Changes.  Here  again  is  encountered 
the  superstition  that  underlies  nearly  all  Chinese 
and  Japanese  institutions,  —  the  superstition  that 
took  captive  even  the  great  mind  of  Confucius. 
The  male  and  the  female  principles ;  the  sympa- 
thetic elements ;  the  diagrams ;  cosmos  growing 
out  of  chaos ;  chaos  re-absorbing  cosmos  —  on 
such  phantasies  did  they  found  their  tactical  sys- 
tem. The  result  was  a  phalanx  of  complicated 
organisation,  difficult  to  manoeuvre  and  liable  to 
be  easily  thrown  into  confusion.  Yet,  when 
Yamaga  in  the  seventeenth  century  interpreted 
these  ancient  Chinese  treatises,  he  detected  in 
them  suggestions  for  a  very  shrewd  use  of  the 
principle  of  echelon,  and  applied  it  to  devise 
formations  which  combined  much  of  the  frontal 
expansion  of  the  line  with  the  solidity  of  the 
column.  More  than  that  cannot  be  claimed  for 
Japanese  military  genius.  The  Japanese  samurai 
was  the  best  fighting  unit  in  the  Orient;  prob- 
ably one  of  the  best  fighting  units  the  world  ever 
produced.  It  was,  perhaps,  because  of  that  ex- 
cellence that  his  captains  remained  mediocre 
tacticians. 


172 


Chapter  V 


BUSHI-DO    OR    THE    WAY   OF 
THE    WARRIOR 

IT  is  usual  to  call  Buddhism  or  Shinto  the 
religion  of  Japan,  but  if  religion  be  the 
source  from  which  spring  the  motives  of 
men's  noblest  actions,  then  the  religion  of 
Japan  was  neither  the  law  of  the  Buddha  (Buppo) 
nor  the  Path  of  the  Gods  (Shin-to)  but  the  Way  of 
the  Warrior  (Bushi-do).1  Shin-to  was  never  more 
than  a  cult.  It  invited  men  to  obey  the  sug- 
gestions of  conscience  and  to  leave  the  rest 
to  heaven.  It  provided  occasions  for  festivals 
which  made  life  perceptibly  brighter,  and  it 
softened  the  sterner  aspects  of  Nature's  phenom- 
ena by  associating  them  with  placable  spirits. 
Buddhism,  indeed,  was  a  living  faith ;  a  faith 
which  often  stirred  its  propagandists  to  deeds 
of  high  devotion  and  its  disciples  to  acts  of  en- 
thusiastic self-sacrifice.  Yet  in  all  ages  Bud- 
dhism sat  very  lightly  on  the  Japanese  people. 
It  presented  itself  to  them  much  as  the  New 
Jerusalem  presented  itself  to  the  writer  of  the 
Revelation, —  a  pageant  of  picturesqueness  and 

1  See  Appendix,  note  3 1 . 

173 


JAPAN 

grandeur :  of  chancels  refulgent  with  gold  and 
silver  ;  of  vestments  glowing  with  rich  colours ; 
of  majestic  buildings  resonant  with  the  music 
of  chaunted  litanies ;  of  cedar  avenues  and  pine 
forests  over  which  floated  the  voices  of  sweet- 
toned  bells ;  of  idols  inviting  artistic  admiration 
rather  than  inspiring  worshipful  awe ;  of  restful- 
ness  in  life  and  of  a  eulogistic  title  and  a  carefully 
tended  tomb  after  death.  Buddhism  helped  to 
develop  the  soldier's  creed,  but  never  played  as 
large  a  part  as  the  latter  in  shaping  the  nation's 
moral  history. 

The  earliest  outlines  of  Bushi-do  are  to  be 
found  in  metrical  behests  conveyed  to  their  fami- 
lies and  descendants  by  captains  of  the  Imperial 
guard  in  ancient  times. 


God,  who,  casting  wide 

Heav'n's  blue  gates,  stepped  down 

On  Takachiho's  crest ; 

Bow  and  shaft  in  hand, 

Over  hill  and  stream 

Trod,  o'er  crag  and  moor, 

Heading  warriors  stanch, 

Quelling  savage  folk ; 

Till  his  pillared  hall 

On  Unebi's  plain 

He  set  up  at  last, 

Unebi  of  Yamato. 

Offspring  of  that  God, 
Our  Imperial  Lords, 

'74 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

In  unbroken  line 
Stand  from  age  to  age. 
To  that  God  our  sires 
Service  leal  and  true 
Rendered  with  strong  hearts, 
Leaving  for  their  sons 
A  mirror  to  all  time. 
Sons,  the  ancestral  name 
Lose  not  from  your  hearts  ; 
Sons,  Otomo's  fame 
Cherish  by  brave  deeds. 


II 

In  the  age  divine 
Otomo's  earliest  sire, 
Okomenushi  hight, 
Loyal  service  wrought. 
If  at  sea  he  served, 
To  the  waves  his  corpse, 
If  on  shore  he  served, 
To  the  moor  his  bones, 
Would  he  gladly  fling 
For  the  sovereign's  sake. 
You,  his  sons,  to  whom 
He  bequeathed  his  name, 
His  heroic  name ; 
Guard  it  by  your  deeds, 
By  your  loyal  deeds 
Make  it  loved  of  men. 
Bow  and  shaft  in  hand, 
Blade  and  sword  in  belt, 
Gladly  hold  the  charge  ; 
Guarding  stand  at  morn, 
Guarding  stand  at  eve. 


JAPAN 

These  exhortations  embody  the  rudiments  of 
the  bush? s  creed,  faith  in  the  divinity  of  the 
sovereign,  and  absolute  loyalty  even  to  the  un- 
questioning sacrifice  of  life  ;  a  fine  foundation  for 
building  a  strong  nation.  How  far  did  such 
sentiments  permeate  the  people  ?  Were  they 
generally  entertained  or  must  they  be  regarded 
as  the  creed  of  a  small  section  only  ? 

It  has  already  been  shown  in  these  pages  that 
in  the  earliest  times  revealed  by  history  the 
Japanese  nation  consisted  entirely  of  soldiers. 
The  sovereign  was  the  commander-in-chief ; 
the  Oomi  and  Omuraji  were  his  lieutenants. 
There  was  no  distinction  of  "  civil "  and  "  mili- 
tary." When  occasion  arose,  the  Emperor  or  a 
prince  of  the  blood  led  the  army,  and  the  duty 
of  serving  in  the  ranks  devolved  on  all  subjects 
alike,  the  great  nobles  forming  a  patriarchal 
council  of  Generals.  But  at  the  close  of  the 
seventh  century,  when  the  Empress  Jito  sat  upon 
the  throne,  the  social  system  of  the  Tang  Dy- 
nasty of  China  commended  itself  for  adoption. 
The  civil  and  the  military  were  then  divided  for 
the  first  time.  Certain  officers  received  commis- 
sions appointing  them  to  special  posts  —  as  the 
Generals  of  the  Left  and  of  the  Right  (Sa-konye 
and  U-konye]  ;  the  Brigadiers  of  the  Left  and  of 
the  Right  (Sa-hiyoye  and  U-hiyoye} ;  the  Captains 
of  the  Left  and  of  the  Right  (Sa-yemon  and 
U-yemori) ;  a  war-office  (byobu-sbo)  was  organised, 
as  were  also  Cavalry  Departments  of  the  Left 

176 


RQNINS. 

THE    GRA  ,*>  U  .n  U- 

The  tombstone  of  the  1 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

(Sa-maryo)  and  of  the  Right  (U-maryo)t  and  each 
important  district  throughout  the  Empire  had  its 
military  division  (gundari).  All  having  been 
originally  soldiers,  no  hereditary  claim  to  carry 
arms  could  be  set  up.  Physical  qualifications 
alone  received  consideration.  One-third  of  the 
nation's  able-bodied  males  constituted  the  army, 
and  these  being  divided  into  three  equal  parts, 
one  part  served  in  the  capital  as  palace  guards ; 
one  had  its  headquarters  in  Kiushiu,  forming  a 
legion  for  the  protection  of  the  southern  coasts 
against  Korean  raiders,  or  for  service  abroad ;  and 
one  part  garrisoned  the  provincial  posts.  As  to 
tactical  formation,  five  men  made  a  section ;  two 
sections,  a  company  ;  five  companies,  a  battalion  ; 
two  battalions,  a  regiment,  and  ten  regiments,  a 
division.  Six  horses  were  assigned  to  a  company, 
the  best  riders  and  archers  being  selected  for 
cavalry  duty.  A  division  consequently  consisted 
of  six  hundred  mounted  men  and  four  hundred 
foot  soldiers.  Service  was  for  a  period  only,  and 
during  that  period  taxes  were  remitted,  so  that 
military  duties  always  found  men  ready  to  dis- 
charge them.  Thus  the  hereditary  soldier  — 
afterwards  known  as  the  samurai  or  bus  hi — did 
not  yet  exist,  nor  was  there  any  such  thing  as  an 
exclusive  right  to  carry  arms.  Weapons  of 
war  were  the  property  of  the  State ;  stored 
away  in  times  of  peace,  and  served  out  periodi- 
cally when  required  for  fighting  or  for  training 
purpose. 

VOL.    II.  12  I  77 


JAPAN 

The  next  stage  of  development  had  its  origin 
in  the  usurpation  of  high  offices  of  State  by  great 
families,  who  encroached  upon  the  Imperial  pre- 
rogatives, and  appropriated,  as  hereditary  per- 
quisites, posts  which  should  have  remained  in 
the  gift  of  the  sovereign.  The  Fujiwara  clan, 
taking  all  the  civil  offices,  resided  in  the  capital, 
whereas  the  military  posts  fell  to  the  lot  of  the 
Taira  and  the  Minamoto,  who,  settling  in  the 
provinces,  and  being  thus  required  to  guard 
the  outlying  districts  and  to  quell  rebellions,  found 
it  expedient  to  surround  themselves  with  men  who 
made  soldiering  a  profession.  These  latter,  in 
their  turn,  copying  the  customs  of  their  superiors, 
transmitted  their  functions  to  their  sons,  so  that 
there  grew  up  in  the  shadow  of  the  great  houses 
a  number  of  military  families  interested  in  main- 
taining the  power  and  promoting  the  prosperity 
of  the  masters  from  whom  they  derived  their 
own  privileges  and  emoluments.  At  the  close 
of  the  eighth  century,  stubborn  insurrections  on 
the  part  of  the  autochthons  gave  new  importance 
to  the  soldier.  The  conscription  list  had  to  be 
greatly  increased,  and  it  came  to  be  a  recognised 
principle  that  every  stalwart  man  should  bear 
arms,  every  weakling  become  a  bread-winner. 
Thus  for  the  first  time  the  distinction  between 
"  soldier  "  and  "  working-man  "  l  received  official 
recognition,  and,  in  consequence  of  the  circum- 
stances attending  the  distinction,  a  measure  of 

1  See  Appendix,  note  32. 

178 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

contempt  attached  to  the  latter  as  compared  with 
the  former. 

It  has  been  shown  in  these  pages  that  the 
continuous  growth  of  the  provincial  nobles 
tended  to  deepen  the  above  line  of  cleavage,  so 
that,  from  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century,  the 
term  samurai  or  bushi  acquired  a  special  signifi- 
cance, being  applied  to  themselves  and  their 
followers  by  the  magnates,  whose  power  tended 
more  and  more  to  eclipse  even  that  of  the 
Throne.  Finally,  in  the  twelfth  century,  when 
the  Minamoto  brought  the  whole  country  under 
the  sway  of  a  military  organisation,  the  privilege 
of  bearing  arms  was  restricted  to  the  bushi. 
Thenceforth  the  military  class  entered  upon 
a  period  of  administrative  and  social  superiority 
which  lasted,  without  serious  interruption,  until 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  it  is 
to  be  observed  that  the  distinction  between  soldier 
and  civilian,  samurai  and  commoner,  was  not  of 
ancient  existence,  nor  did  it  arise  from  any  ques- 
tion of  race  or  caste,  victor  and  vanquished,  as  is 
often  supposed  and  stated.  It  was  an  outcome 
wholly  of  ambitious  usurpations,  which,  relying 
for  success  on  force  of  arms,  gave  practical  im- 
portance to  the  soldier  and  invested  his  profession 
with  factitious  honour.  Hence,  when  Bushi-dd, 
or  the  "warrior's  way,"  is  spoken  of,  there 
should  be  understood  a  moral  cult,  not  the  special 
property  of  one  section  only  of  the  nation,  but 
representing  the  development  that  Japanese  char- 

179 


JAPAN 

acter  in  general  tended  to  assume  under  certain 
conditions. 

The  rules  of  conduct  prescribed  for  the  bushi 
varied,  more  or  less,  in  different  fiefs,  each  feudal 
chief  enacting  his  own  code.  As  a  general  type 
it  will  be  sufficient  to  quote  one  set  of  regulations 
—  those  formulated  by  Kato  Kiyomasa,  a  cele- 
brated general  of  the  sixteenth  century  :  — 

The  following  regulations  are  to  be  observed  by 
samurai  of  every  rank,  the  highest  and  the  lowest  alike  : 

1.  The  routine  of  service  must  be  strictly  observed. 
From  six  A.  M.   military  exercises   shall    be    practised. 
Archery,    gunnery,    and    equestrianism    must    not    be 
neglected.     If  any  man  shows  greater  proficiency  than 
his  comrades  in  the  way  of  the  bushi >  he  shall  receive 
extra  pay. 

2.  Those    that    desire   recreation    may   engage   in 
hawking,  deer-hunting,  or  wrestling. 

3.  With    regard   to    dress,   garments   of  cotton  or 
pongee  shall  be  worn.     Any  one  incurring  debts  owing 
to  extravagance  of  costume  or  living  shall  be  considered 
a  law-breaker.     If,  however,  being  zealous  in  the  prac- 
tice of  military  arts  suitable  to  his  rank,  a  man  desires 
to  hire  instructors,  an  allowance  for  that  purpose  may 
be  granted  to  him. 

4.  The  staple  of  diet  shall   be  unhulled  rice.     At 
social  entertainments,  one  guest  for  one   host   is  the 
proper  limit.     Only  when  men  are  assembled  for  mili- 
tary exercises  should  many  dine  together. 

5.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  samurai  to  make  himself 
acquainted  with  the  principles  of  his  craft.     Extrava- 
gant displays  of  adornment  are  forbidden  in  battle. 

6.  Dancing,  or    organising  dances,  is  unlawful :   it 
is  likely  to  betray  sword-carrying  men  to  acts  of  vio- 

'      180 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

lence.1  Whatever  a  man  does  should  be  done  with  his 
heart.  Therefore  for  the  soldier  military  amusements 
alone  are  suitable.  The  penalty  for  violating  this  pro- 
vision is  death  by  suicide. 

7.  Learning  should  be  encouraged.  Military  books 
must  be  read.  The  spirit  of  loyalty  and  filial  piety 
must  be  educated  before  all  things.  Poem-compos- 
ing pastimes  are  not  to  be  engaged  in  by  samurai. 
To  be  addicted  to  such  amusements  is  to  resemble  a 
woman.  A  man  born  a  samurai  should  live  and  die 
sword  in  hand.  Unless  he  be  thus  trained  in  time  of 
peace,  he  will  be  useless  in  the  hour  of  stress.  To  be 
brave  and  warlike  must  be  his  invariable  condition. 

Whosoever  finds  these  rules  too  severe  shall  be  re- 
lieved from  service.  Should  investigation  show  that 
any  one  is  so  unfortunate  as  to  lack  manly  qualities, 
he  shall  be  singled  out  and  dismissed  forthwith.  The 
imperative  character  of  these  instructions  must  not  be 
doubted. 

The  obviously  paramount  purpose  of  these 
regulations  was  to  draw  a  sharp  line  of  demarka- 
tion  between  the  samurai  and  the  courtiers  living 
in  Kyoto.  The  dancing,  the  couplet-composing, 
the  sumptuous  living,  and  the  fine  costumes  of 
officials  frequenting  the  Imperial  capital  were 
strictly  interdicted  by  the  feudatories,  and  the 
veto  in  Kiyomasa's  code  was  couched  in  language 
that  must  have  sounded  particularly  offensive  in 
the  ears  of  the  ancient  nobility  of  Kyoto.  Fru- 
gality, fealty,  and  filial  piety  —  these  may  be 
called  the  fundamental  virtues  of  the  bushi. 
Owing  to  the  circumstances  out  of  which  his 

1  Sec  Appendix,  note  33. 

181 


JAPAN 

caste  had  grown,  he  regarded  all  bread-winning 
pursuits  with  contempt  and  despised  money.  It 
was  the  constant  aim  of  his  leaders  to  encourage 
this  mood,  and  they  succeeded  thoroughly, 
though  their  methods  were  not  apparently  calcu- 
lated to  ensure  success.  For  while,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  allowances  granted  to  a  bushi  of  inferior 
rank  were  so  meagre  that  it  often  became  neces- 
sary for  him  to  undertake  some  domestic  industry 
in  order  to  procure  means  of  sustenance,  on  the 
other,  rewards  for  distinguished  services  usually 
took  the  form  of  an  increase  of  income,  and  in 
describing  a  great  man's  position,  one  of  the  first 
points  mentioned  was  the  number  of  measures  of 
rice  he  received  annually.  Emoluments,  there- 
fore, should  naturally  have  occupied  a  large  share 
of  attention.  But  they  did  not.  An  ample  cor- 
rective seems  to  have  been  furnished  by  a  system 
of  ranks  and  grades,  through  which  the  samurai 
could  gradually  rise  by  distinguished  conduct 
until  he  stood  within  a  short  distance  of  the 
Throne  itself.  For,  although  the  sovereign 
towered  above  all  human  distinctions,  and  there- 
fore did  not  nominally  occupy  any  place  in  the 
classification,  nevertheless  the  first  grade  of  the 
first  rank  was  not  bestowed  upon  any  subject. 
It  corresponded  to  the  hiatus  left  in  a  document 
before  a  mention  of  the  Mikado.  If  any  subject 
attained  to  the  second  grade  of  the  first  rank,  as 
some  few  did  under  wholly  exceptional  circum- 
stances, he  could  feel  that  he  had  ascended  very 

182 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

close  to  the  Throne.  Further,  a  samurai's  official 
rank,  being  prefixed  to  his  name,  constituted  a 
species  of  title  which  he  valued  as  much  as  the 
right  of  carrying  a  sword.  For  these  various 
reasons,  but  chiefly  because  bread- winning  was 
originally  the  business  of  those  not  physically 
qualified  to  be  soldiers,  the  bushi  regarded  money 
with  indifference  and  even  contempt.  To  be 
swayed  in  the  smallest  degree  by  mercenary  mo- 
tives was  despicable  in  his  eyes. 

The  bushi  was  essentially  a  stoic.  He  made 
self-control  the  ideal  of  his  existence,  and  prac- 
tised the  courageous  endurance  of  suffering  so 
thoroughly  that  he  could  without  hesitation 
inflict  on  his  own  body  pain  of  the  severest 
description. 

The  power  of  surrendering  life  with  heroic 
calmness  has  been  developed  by  men  in  all  ages, 
and  is  regarded  by  philosophers  as  an  elementary 
form  of  human  virtue,  practised  with  most  suc- 
cess in  an  uncivilised  state  of  society  before  the 
finer  appreciations  of  the  imaginative  and  intellec- 
tual faculties  have  been  developed  by  education. 
But  the  courage  of  the  bushi  cannot  justly  be 
ascribed  to  bluntness  of  moral  sensibility  resulting 
from  semi-savage  conditions  of  life.  It  has  been 
shown  in  these  pages  that  the  current  of  existence 
in  Japan  from  the  Nara  epoch  onward  set  with 
general  steadiness  in  the  direction  of  artistic 
refinement  and  voluptuous  luxury,  amid  which 
men  could  scarcely  fail  to  acquire  habits  and 

183 


JAPAN 

tastes  inconsistent  with  acts  of  high  courage  and 
great  endurance.  The  bus  hi' s  mood,  therefore, 
was  not  a  product  of  semi-barbarous  conditions, 
but  rather  a  protest  against  emasculating  civilisa- 
tion. He  schooled  himself  to  regard  death  in- 
flicted by  his  own  hand  as  a  normal  eventuality. 
The  story  of  other  nations  shows  epochs  when 
death  was  welcomed  as  a  relief  and  deliberately 
invited  as  a  refuge  from  the  mere  weariness  of 
living.  But  wherever  there  has  been  liberty  to 
choose,  and  leisure  to  employ,  a  painless  mode 
of  exit  from  the  world,  men  have  invariably 
selected  it.  The  euthanasis  of  the  Romans  was 
achieved  by  the  opened  vein  or  the  numbing 
herb,  and  only  the  barbarian  captive  who  had  to 
resort  to  any  available  weapon  and  to  seize  the 
earliest  opportunity,  displayed  contempt  of  physi- 
cal suffering  in  the  hour  of  death.  The  busht, 
however,  deliberately  adopted  a  mode  of  suicide 
so  painful  and  so  shocking  that  to  school  the 
mind  to  regard  it  with  indifference  and  resort  to 
it  without  flinching  was  a  feat  not  easy  to  con- 
ceive. His  method  was  to  plunge  a  short-sword 
into  the  left  side  of  the  abdomen,  swop  it  across 
to  the  right,  giving  it  a  sharp  upward  turn  at  the 
end  of  the  gash  ;  then  to  withdraw  it,  thrust  it 
into  the  back  of  the  neck,  and  cut  toward  the 
throat.  Assistance  was  often  rendered  by  a  friend, 
who,  sword  in  hand,  stood  ready  to  decapitate 
the  victim  immediately  after  the  stomach  had 
been  gashed ;  but  there  were  innumerable  exam- 

184 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

pies  of  men  who  consummated  the  tragedy  with- 
out aid,  especially  when  the  sacrifice  of  life  was 
by  way  of  protest  against  the  excesses  of  a  feudal 
chief  or  the  crimes  of  a  ruler,  or  when  some 
motive  for  secrecy  existed. 

It  must  be  observed  that  the  suicide  of  the  bushi 
was  never  inspired  by  any  doctrine  like  that  of 
Hegesias.  Death  did  not  present  itself  to  him  as 
a  legitimate  means  of  escaping  from  the  cares  and 
disappointments  of  life.  Self-destruction  had  only 
one  consolatory  aspect,  namely,  that  it  was  the 
soldier's  privilege  to  expiate  a  crime  with  his  own 
sword,  not  under  the  hand  of  the  executioner. 
He  might  not  be  haled  before  a  legal  tribunal, 
like  a  common  peasant  or  an  artisan.  It  rested 
with  his  feudal  chief  to  determine  his  guilt,  and 
his  peremptory  duty  was  never  to  question  the 
justice  of  an  order  to  commit  suicide,  but  to  obey 
without  murmur  or  protest.  For  the  rest,  the 
general  motives  were  to  escape  the  dishonour  of 
falling  into  the  hands  of  a  victorious  enemy,  to 
remonstrate  against  some  official  abuse  which  no 
ordinary  complaint  could  reach,  or,  by  means  of 
a  dying  protest,  to  turn  a  liege  lord  from  pursuing 
courses  injurious  to  his  reputation  and  his  fortunes. 
This  last  was  the  noblest  reason  for  suicide,  and 
by  no  means  the  most  infrequent.  Scores  of 
examples  are  recorded  of  men  who,  with  every- 
thing to  make  existence  desirable,  fortune,  friends, 
high  office,  and  higher  prospects,  deliberately  laid 
down  their  lives  at  the  prompting  of  loyalty,  their 


JAPAN 

sense  of  duty  depriving  the  seppuku1  of  all  its 
horrors.  There  the  Japanese  bushi  rose  to  a 
remarkable  height  of  moral  nobility.  He  had  no 
assurance  that  his  death  might  not  be  wholly 
fruitless.  So,  indeed,  it  often  proved.  If  the 
sacrifice  achieved  its  purpose,  if  it  turned  a  liege 
lord  from  evil  courses  into  the  path  of  sobriety, 
the  bushi  could  hope  that  his  memory  would  be 
honoured.  But  if,  in  obedience  to  the  common 
promptings  of  human  nature,  the  lord  resented 
such  a  violent  and  conspicuous  method  of  reprov- 
ing his  excesses,  then  the  faithful  vassal's  retribu- 
tion would  be  an  execrated  memory  and,  perhaps, 
suffering  for  his  family  and  relatives.  Yet  the 
deed  was  perpetrated  again  and  again.  The 
loyal  servant  committed  to  paper  a  last  appeal  to 
the  better  instincts  of  his  master,  and  then  calmly 
disembowelled  himself. 

If  he  was  always  ready  to  die  for  the  sake  of 
his  master's  fair  fame,  the  bushi  naturally  counted 
suicide  preferable  to  his  own  dishonour.  Uyesugi 
Kenshin,  feudal  chief  of  Echigo,  one  of  the 
greatest  captains  of  the  sixteenth  century,  enacted 
a  code  of  regulations  in  which  the  heaviest  penalty 
prescribed  for  a  bushi  was  deprivation  of  his 
swords  ;  the  second,  death  ;  the  third,  banishment. 
It  is  recorded  that  one  of  his  vassals,  Nagao 
Uyemon,  having  committed  a  serious  offence, 
Kenshin  condemned  him  to  forfeit  the  privilege 
of  carrying  a  sword,  and  when  strong  intercession 

1  See  Appendix,  note  34. 

186 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

was  made  for  the  man  on  the  plea  that  his  father 
had  done  great  deeds,  Kenshin  agreed  to  commute 
the  sentence  to  suicide. 

Innumerable  instances  present  themselves  of 
men  who  laid  down  their  lives  to  save  those  of 
their  feudal  chiefs.  Indeed  such  cases  were  so 
common  that  historians  did  not  think  it  worth 
while  to  relate  them  unless  some  exceptional 
circumstances  distinguished  the  event.  One  or 
two  must  be  set  down  here,  however,  for  the 
sake  of  illustrating  not  merely  this  particular 
phase  of  the  bush?s  character,  but  also  his  methods 
in  general. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century,  after 
the  overthrow  of  the  Taira  clan,  which  event 
was  brought  about  chiefly  by  the  military  genius 
of  Yoshitsune, -the  latter,  becoming  an  object  of 
jealousy  to  his  brother  Yoritomo,  who  wielded 
the  administrative  power,  had  to  fly  northward 
to  Oshiu.  Attended  by  a  small  band  of  faithful 
followers,  who  had  fought  beside  him  in  all  his 
campaigns,  he  reached  the  plain  of  Yoshino, 
where  his  pursuers  pressed  upon  him  so  closely 
that  unless  they  could  be  checked,  escape  seemed 
impossible.  Yoshitsune  had  reconciled  himself 
to  his  fate  when  one  of  the  party,  Sato  Tadanobu, 
a  swordsman  of  the  highest  skill,  asked  permis- 
sion to  personate  his  chief  and  await  the  enemy's 
onset,  hoping  that  during  the  interval  thus  gained 
his  comrades  could  continue  their  flight.  Yoshit- 
sune was  .most  unwilling  to  sacrifice  an  old  friend, 

187 


JAPAN 

but  Tadanobu  insisted  that  hesitation  would  give 
the  foe  time  to  surround  them,  and  then  all  must 
die.  At  length  Yoshitsune  consented,  and  hav- 
ing changed  armour  with  Tadanobu,  "  tearfully 
continued  his  flight."  A  fierce  combat  ensued. 
Tadanobu,  proclaiming  himself  Yoshitsune,  slew 
a  score  of  his  assailants,  and  finally  cutting  a 
way  through  their  ranks,  reached  Kyoto,  where 
he  concealed  himself  in  the  house  of  a  woman 
who  had  formerly  been  his  mistress,  until  an 
opportunity  of  rejoining  Yoshitsune  should  pre- 
sent itself.  The  woman  had  for  lover  at  the  time 
Kajiwara  Kagehisa,  one  of  Yoritomo's  captains. 
Looking  for  credit  and  reward,  she  revealed  to 
Kagehisa  the  fact  that  Tadanobu  was  hiding  in 
her  house.  But  Kagehisa,  whose  conduct  at 
this  point  is  described  as  that  of  a  "  true  bushi" 
rebuked  the  woman  sternly.  "  I  have  orders  to 
search  diligently  for  Yoshitsune,"  he  said,  "  but 
I  have  no  order  to  search  for  Tadanobu,  and 
I  should  deem  myself  disgraced  if,  for  the 
sake  of  guerdon,  I  sought  the  life  of  one  of 
the  most  loyal  soldiers  in  the  Empire.  Tada- 
nobu was  once  your  lover.  If  you  are  not  suffi- 
ciently virtuous  to  die  for  him,  you  can  at  least 
help  him  to  escape."  With  that  he  turned  his 
back  on  the  woman  and  never  visited  her  again. 
But  she,  now  adding  chagrin  to  cupidity,  re- 
paired to  Rokuhara,  and  gave  information  to  the 
officials  there.  Two  hundred  men  were  sent  to 
seize  Tadanobu.  Again  he  fought  a  splendid 

1 83 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

fight,  cutting  down  fifteen  or  sixteen  of  his  assail- 
ants, so  that  at  last  they  retired  beyond  the  reach 
of  his  sword,  and  bent  their  bows  to  shoot  him. 
Then  he  ascended  to  the  roof  of  the  house  and 
shouted  to  them  to  hold  their  hands  while  he 
spoke :  "  A  crowd  of  you  have  come  to  attack 
me  as  I  slept.  Cowards  !  Did  you  not  dare  to 
challenge  me  in  fair  fight  ?  I  have  already  given 
my  life  to  my  lord  on  the  plain  of  Yoshino,  and 
to  lose  it  now  is  nothing.  It  would  be  easy  to 
fall,  fighting  so  long  as  my  sword  had  an  edge. 
But  to  slay  one  or  two  hundred  common  fellows 
like  you  would  be  an  idle  task.  Yet  you  shall 
not  carry  to  Kamakura  a  lying  story  how  you 
took  the  head  of  such  an  one  as  Tadanobu.  See 
now  how  a  true  warrior  dies,  so  that  you  may 
tell  it  to  your  children/'  Thus  speaking,  he 
plunged  his  sword  into  his  body  and  drew  it 
across  and  upward  in  the  true  seppuku  fashion. 
Yoritomo  applauded  his  death  in  terms  of  high 
praise,  and  caused  his  body  to  be  buried  with  all 
honour. 

Prince  Morinaga,  besieged  by  his  enemies 
(1333  A.  D.)  and  reduced  to  desperate  straits,  fled 
at  the  last  moment  from  his  castle.  If  the  assail- 
ants suspected  his  flight,  escape  would  be  impos- 
sible. Murakami  Yoshimitsu,  donning  a  suit  of  the 
Prince's  armour,  ascended  a  tower,  and  present- 
ing himself  to  the  enemy,  shouted,  "  Hear  me, 
rebels  !  I,  the  son  of  the  Emperor  Godaigo,  de- 
stroyed by  your  disloyalty,  die  here  by  my  own 

189 


JAPAN 

hand.  Learn  from  me  how  to  die,  that  you  may 
know  it  when  your  time  comes."  Then  taking 
off  his  armour,  he  cast  it  from  the  tower,  and 
cutting  open  his  stomach,  tore  out  his  intestines, 
dashed  them  against  the  battlements,  and  fell 
with  his  sword  in  his  teeth.  His  son  Yoshitaka 
would  have  followed  his  example,  but  the  father 
forbade  him  to  make  any  needless  sacrifice  of  his 
life,  which  belonged  to  his  Prince.  Yoshitaka, 
therefore,  joined  the  Prince,  and  subsequently, 
when  the  latter  was  hard  pressed,  Yoshitaka 
planted  himself  in  the  path  and  held  off  the 
pursuers  until,  having  received  ten  wounds,  he 
finally  leaped  into  a  bamboo  grove  and  committed 
suicide. 

When  Kamakura  fell,  the  Hojo  chief,  Takatoki, 
with  eight  hundred  and  seventy  of  his  principal 
vassals,  repaired  to  the  temple  Tosho-ji,  where 
they  all  committed  suicide.  Many  other  fol- 
lowers of  the  Hojo  died  by  their  own  hand  in 
various  parts  of  the  town.  Among  the  latter  was 
Ando  Sayemon.  Driven  from  his  post  with  a 
remnant  of  his  troops,  only  a  hundred  men,  and 
finding  his  house  destroyed,  his  wife  and  children 
gone,  and  Takatoki's  castle  in  ruins,  he  prepared 
with  his  comrades  to  commit  seppuku  beside  the 
smoking  ruins,  for,  not  knowing  that  Takatoki 
and  his  men  were  even  then  dying  at  Tosho-ji,  he 
complained  bitterly  of  the  disgrace  that  the  flames 
which  destroyed  the  castle  of  the  lord  of  all  Japan 
had  not  been  watered  by  the  blood  of  at  least  a 

190 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

thousand  of  his  soldiers.  At  that  moment  a  mes- 
senger arrived  carrying  a  letter  from  Ando's  niece, 
who  was  married  to  Nitta  Yoshisada,  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  hostile  forces.  She  advised  Ando 
to  surrender  to  Yoshisada,  pledging  herself  to  in- 
tercede for  him.  It  is  related  that  Ando's  answer 
was  :  "  A  soldier's  wife  must  have  a  soldier's  heart 
if  she  is  to  bear  him  children  worthy  of  his  name. 
All  men  knew  that  it  has  been  my  privilege  to 
live  a  warrior's  life,  and  if  now,  when  fate  has 
found  me,  I  yielded  to  the  foe,  shame  would  be 
my  lot.  Yoshisada  may  have  thought  to  put  me 
to  the  proof,  but  his  wife  should  not  have  helped 
him  to  insult  me  by  such  a  proposal."  Then, 
wrapping  the  letter  round  the  hilt  of  his  sword, 
he  disembowelled  himself,  and  his  example  was 
followed  by  all  his  soldiers. 

Uyesugi  Kenshin,  desiring  to  secure  the  prov- 
ince of  Shinano  against  the  enterprises  of  his  rival, 
Takeda  Shingen,  gave  it  in  fief  to  his  brother- 
in-law,  Nagao  Masakage.  Presently  doubts  be- 
gan to  be  thrown  on  the  fidelity  of  Masakage. 
Kenshin  resolved  to  have  him  put  to  death,  and 
took  counsel  as  to  how  the  decision  might  be 
carried  out.  His  chief  vassals  urged  him  to  de- 
sist, pointing  out  that  only  vague  suspicions 
existed ;  that  to  act  on  such  evidence  might  in- 
volve the  very  catastrophe  they  sought  to  avert, 
namely,  the  loss  of  Shinano,  and  that  to  compass 
the  death  of  his  own  brother-in-law  would  be  a 
disgrace  to  Kenshin.  But  he  overruled  their 

191 


JAPAN 

objections  and  ordered  Sadayuki,  chief  of  Nojiri, 
to  contrive  the  removal  of  the  supposed  traitor. 
Sadayuki  repaired  to  Nojiri,  invited  Masakage  to 
pay  him  a  friendly  visit,  took  him  out  on  the 
lake  in  a  boat  having  its  keel  planks  loosened, 
and  throwing  his  arms  around  him,  died  with 
him.  People  did  not  detect  the  hand  of  Ken- 
shin  in  this  incident.  They  imagined  that  it 
was  the  sequel  of  a  private  quarrel  between 
the  two  men,  and  Kenshin  confirmed  the  delu- 
sion by  confiscating  Sadayuki's  fief.  But  he 
subsequently  bestowed  large  revenues  on  Sada- 
yuki's son,  and  adopted  as  his  own  heir  Ma- 
sakage's  son,  the  afterwards  celebrated  Uyesugi 
Kagekatsu. 

Two  other  instances  may  be  quoted,  one  as 
helping  to  express  the  motive  of  the  bushfs 
loyalty,  another  as  illustrating  his  heroic  cour- 
age :  — 

Takeda  Katsuyori,  his  forces  scattered  in  battle, 
escaped  with  only  forty  men  to  the  mountain  of 
Temmoku.  There  he  was  joined  by  Kamiyama 
Tomonobu.  This  man,  previously  one  of  Kat- 
suyori's  chief  vassals,  had  been  dismissed  in  con- 
sequence of  his  unwelcome  warnings  that  disaster 
must  result  unless  his  lord  adopted  different 
courses,  and  in  consequence  of  slanders  directed 
against  him.  He  found  higher  service  else- 
where, yet  when  he  learned  that  Katsuyori  was 
reduced  to  helpless  extremity,  he  hastened  to  his 
side  and  died  with  him. 

192 


SAMURAI   IN   ARMOUR. 

The  weapon  with  a  long  handle  is  a  glaive. 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

Okudaira  Nobumasa,  besieged  in  the  castle  of 
Nagashimo  by  Takeda  Katsuyori,  found  himself 
reduced  to  such  straits  for  provisions  that  unless 
succour  arrived  speedily  he  must  surrender.  He 
called  for  a  volunteer  to  carry  the  news  of  his 
plight  to  Tokugawa  lyeyasu,  by  whom  he  had 
been  stationed  to  guard  the  castle.  Torii  Suneye- 
mon  undertook  to  bear  the  message.  He  suc- 
ceeded in  making  his  way  through  the  enemy 
and  reaching  lyeyasu,  who  assured  him  that  Oda 
Nobunaga  was  then  marching  to  the  relief  of 
the  castle,  and  that  he  himself  would  set  his 
forces  in  motion  for  the  same  purpose  the  fol- 
lowing day.  He  therefore  advised  Suneyemon 
to  remain  in  the  camp  and  join  the  troops  in 
their  movement  towards  the  castle.  Suneyemon, 
however,  refused  to  remain  a  moment.  His 
comrades,  he  said,  would  be  anxiously  awaiting 
his  return.  But  in  attempting  to  re-enter  the 
castle,  he  fell  into  the  enemy's  hands.  They 
offered  him  his  life  as  well  as  large  reward,  if  he 
would  proceed  to  the  walls  and  warn  the  garri- 
son that  succour  could  not  arrive  and  that  nothing 
was  left  but  surrender.  He  consented.  Then 
Katsuyori's  men,  having  bound  him  to  a  cross, 
set  it  up  before  the  castle  and,  by  means  of  a 
letter-bearing  arrow,  summoned  the  garrison  to 
the  ramparts  to  receive  his  message.  Suneyemon, 
a  circle  of  spear-points  directed  against  his  naked 
bosom,  raised  his  head  and  shouted  to  the  garri- 
son :  "  Before  three  days  you  will  be  relieved. 
VOL.  H. — 13 


JAPAN 

Stand  fast."  As  he  uttered  the  last  word  the 
spears  clashed  in  his  body. 

There  is  scarcely  any  limit  to  the  number  of 
historical  incidents  illustrating  this  phase  of  the 
bushfs  character.  They  seem  to  indicate  that 
heroic  loyalty  was  the  rudimentary  virtue  of  the 
Military  epoch.  Before  formulating  any  general 
conclusion  of  that  kind,  however,  it  will  be  wise 
to  consider  some  of  the  other  attributes  revealed 
by  the  records  of  the  bush? s  acts. 

The  history  of  humanity  shows  that  moral 
principles  have  never  been  allowed  to  interfere 
greatly  with  the  consummation  of  ambitious 
designs.  No  contradiction  of  that  experience  is 
to  be  found  in  the  story  of  the  samurai.  If 
loyalty  and  fidelity  were  conspicuously  displayed 
by  him  in  a  subordinate  position,  he  sometimes 
violated  both  without  hesitation  for  the  sake  of 
grasping  power  or  climbing  to  social  eminence. 
When  Ashikaga  Takauji,  one  of  the  principal 
Kamakura  generals,  was  about  to  march  from 
Kamakura  to  Kyoto  at  a  crisis  in  the  history  of 
the  Hojo's  supremacy,  suspicions  were  cast  upon 
his  loyalty,  and  the  Hojo  Vicegerent  asked  him 
to  sign  an  oath  of  fidelity.  He  did  so  without 
hesitation,  and,  a  few  days  later,  accepted  the 
Emperor's  commission  to  destroy  the  Hojo.  It 
would  not  be  easy  to  find  many  instances  of 
treachery  following  so  close  on  the  heels  of  as- 
severations of  loyalty,  but  there  are  almost  innu- 
merable examples  of  men  plotting  against  those 

194 


to  whom  they  owed  the  foundations  of  their 
fortune,  or  betraying  those  that  trusted  them. 
Vicarious  but  striking  evidence  of  the  prevalence 
of  such  lapses  is  furnished  by  the  success  that  at- 
tended slanders,  and  the  readiness  of  men  in 
power  to  listen  to  whispers  against  the  fealty  of 
their  subordinates  or  the  constancy  of  their  allies. 
Indeed  the  victim  of  unjust  slander  is  a  figure 
encountered  perpetually  in  the  annals  of  mediae- 
val Japan,  and  the  only  circumstance  that  palliates 
his  existence  is  the  sympathy  he  receives  from 
the  dramatist  and  the  historian.  If,  in  those 
unquiet  times,  the  traducer  found  a  credulous 
audience,  the  contumely  heaped  upon  his 
memory  is  sufficient  indication  that  his  methods 
were  contrary  to  the  moral  code  of  the  nation, 
and  especially  of  the  bushL  Moreover,  as  against 
these  displays  of  treachery  and  deceit,  must  be 
set  the  circumstances  of  the  era :  an  era  when  a 
man's  strength  to  defy  attack  was  the  measure  of 
his  safety ;  when  a  state  of  war  being  the  normal 
condition  of  the  nation,  the  wide  license  of 
method  permissible  in  war  received  general 
sanction,  and  when  no  success  was  too  large  nor 
any  office  too  high  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of 
resolute  and  unscrupulous  daring. 

That  the  vendetta  was  largely  practised  in  the 
Military  epoch  is  doubtless  attributable  mainly 
to  the  fact  that  there  did  not  exist  any  competent 
or  trustworthy  tribunals,  acting  in  the  interests 
of  society  and  ready  to  undertake  the  office  of 

'95 


JAPAN 

punishment  instead  of  leaving  it  to  the  wronged 
person.  The  passion  of  revenge  has  always  and 
everywhere  shown  itself  one  of  the  most  durable 
of  human  motives.  In  Japan  it  inspired  untir- 
ing, implacable  tenacity  of  deadly  purpose.  Men 
devoted  long  years  to  pursuing  the  slayer  of 
a  father  or  some  less  intimate  relative ;  aban- 
doned fortune  and  position  in  order  to  carry  out 
the  quest,  and  did  not  allow  extreme  hardships 
to  divert  them  from  their  aim.  But  if  these 
displays  of  resolution  and  endurance  elicit 
applause,  there  is  generally  to  be  found  in  the 
circumstances  that  gave  rise  to  the  vendetta  some 
revolting  exhibition  of  treachery,  vindictiveness, 
or  ferocity.  A  man  defeated  in  a  fencing-match 
to  which  he  has  himself  challenged  his  opponent, 
subsequently  waylays  the  latter,  and  shoots  him 
from  behind,  or  hires  assassins  to  destroy  him,  or 
contrives  his  disgrace  by  preferring  false  charges 
officially  against  him.  A  samurai,  with  the  aid 
of  his  paramour,  inveigles  a  rival  to  a  drinking- 
bout  and  slays  him  as  he  lies  unconscious  under 
the  influence  of  wine.  A  soldier  who  sees 
another  promoted  over  his  head,  devises  an  elab- 
orate scheme  to  convict  him  of  conspiracy  which 
he  has  never  contemplated.  Such  acts,  forming 
the  prelude  to  vengeance  achieved  in  despite  of 
great  difficulties  and  lengthy  delays,  are  almost 
sufficiently  numerous  to  lower  the  general  stand- 
ard of  the  bushi's  morality;  but  when  the  spirit 
they  displayed  is  balanced  against  the  spirit  they 

196 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

evoked  and  against  the  instances  of  heroic  loyalty 
with  which  the  records  abound,  the  excess  is  cer- 
tainly not  on  the  evil  side. 

The  expedients  resorted  to  by  combatants  and 
political  rivals  during  the  Military  epoch  evinced 
a  liberal  rendering  of  the  principle  that  every- 
thing is  fair  in  war.  Oda  Nobunaga  did  not 
hesitate  to  forge  documents  containing  false 
accusations  against  men  whom  he  wished  to 
destroy.  Hideyoshi,  the  Taiko  desiring  to  pur- 
chase the  friendship  of  lyeyasu,  by  whom  he  had 
been  defeated  in  battle,  took  his  own  sister-in- 
law  from  her  husband,  one  of  his  vassals,  and 
sent  her  to  lyeyasu.  The  girl's  husband  com- 
mitted suicide,  but  lyeyasu,  though  cognisant  of 
these  things,  accepted  her  for  the  sake  of  her 
beauty  and  because  of  the  purpose  of  the  gift. 
More  instructive,  however,  than  the  multiplica- 
tion of  historical  instances  is  the  text  of  the 
Chinese  treatises  from  which  the  bushi  derived 
military  instruction.  It  is  there  laid  down  that 
the  spy  is  the  highest  product  of  skilled  strategy, 
and  five  varieties  are  minutely  described,  the 
greatest  expert  being  he  that,  simulating  disaffec- 
tion to  the  master  he  really  serves,  wins  the  con- 
fidence of  the  enemy,  and,  living  in  their  midst, 
deceives  them  into  adopting  suicidal  courses. 
Obata  Kagemori,  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
tacticians  of  Japan,  played  that  role  successfully 
when,  a  secret  emissary  of  lyeyasu,  he  lived  in 
the  castle  of  Osaka,  and  succeeded  in  thwarting, 

'97 


JAPAN 

while  pretending  to  promote,  the  plans  of  its 
master  Hideyori.  It  may  be  broadly  stated  that 
moral  principles  received  no  respect  whatever 
from  framers  of  political  plots  or  planners  of 
ruses-de-guerre.  Yet  the  Taiko,  who  stands 
conspicuous  among  Japan's  great  leaders  for 
improbity  in  the  choice  of  means  to  a  public  or 
a  military  end,  desired  to  commit  suicide  rather 
than  survive  the  ignominy  of  failure  to  fulfil 
a  pledge.  Nothing,  indeed,  could  be  more 
erroneous  than  to  conclude  that  because  the 
dictates  of  right  arid  honour  were  ignored  in 
dealing  with  an  enemy,  the  bushi  showed  similar 
laxity  in  intercourse  with  friends  and  comrades. 
Such  an  error  would  correspond  to  inferring  that 
the  immorality  displayed  by  modern  nations  in 
their  relations  with  each  other  is  reflected  in  the 
conduct  of  the  individuals  composing  them. 

The  bushi  entertained  a  high  respect  for  the 
obligations  of  truth.  "  A  bushi  never  lies  "  was 
one  of  his  favourite  mottoes  ;  or,  to  put  it  in  his 
own  language,  "  A  bushi  has  no  second  word  " 
(bushi  ni  nigon  nashi}.  Industrial  veracity  never 
existed  in  Japan.  Neither  commerce  nor  manu- 
facturing enterprise  acquired  at  any  time  sufficient 
importance  to  demonstrate  the  injurious  effects 
of  want  of  mutual  confidence  and  the  value  of 
strict  fidelity  to  engagements.  Political  veracity 
remained  similarly  undeveloped.  Probably  no 
other  nation  continued  throughout  so  many  cen- 
turies entirely  unacquainted  with  public  contro- 

198 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

versy  or  debate  in  any  form,  whether  religious, 
philosophical,  or  political.  It  cannot  even  be 
said  that  object  lessons  in  the  uses  of  a  judicial 
spirit  were  furnished  by  the  law  courts,  for  these 
simply  administered  the  edicts  of  rulers  without 
attempting  to  set  forth  the  reasons  of  their  de- 
cisions. There  was,  in  fact,  nothing  to  educate 
the  spirit  of  fair  play  which  is  the  invariable 
companion  of  a  love  of  truth.  Yet  the  bushi 
unquestionably  set  high  store  by  veracity,  and 
had  a  keen  sense  of  the  dishonour  and  disgrace 
that  ought  to  attach  to  a  falsehood.  This  word 
"  falsehood "  is  not  here  employed  in  the  very 
extensive  sense  given  to  it  by  moral  philosophers 
in  the  Occident.  According  to  the  view  enter- 
tained by  the  bushi  in  the  Military  epoch  and 
still  prevalent  throughout  the  Japanese  nation, 
the  obligation  to  reveal  facts  in  their  nakedness 
is  relative.  If  it  is  evident  that  misfortune  will 
be  entailed  or  distress  caused  by  absolute  frank- 
ness of  declaration,  concealment,  or  even  misrep- 
resentation, is  considered  justifiable.  Truth  is 
not  set  upon  a  pedestal  above  the  sorrows  and 
sufferings  of  existence,  or  even  above  the  cares 
and  worries  of  daily  life.  If,  indeed,  the  conse- 
quences of  the  spoken  word  will  fall  entirely 
upon  the  speaker,  the  duty  of  veracity  becomes 
theoretically  imperative.  But  if  the  interests  or 
welfare  of  others  is  at  stake,  statements  may  be 
adapted  to  occasions.  That  is  the  philosophy  of 
falsehood  in  Japan  to-day  as  it  was  in  the  Mili- 

199 


JAPAN 

tary  epoch.  "  The  untruth  of  convenience " 
(hoben  no  uso)t  the  "  white  lie,"  is  not  counted  an 
offence  against  morality.  What  the  bus  hi  meant 
when  he  announced  his  creed,  "  no  second  word," 
was  that  a  pledge  or  promise  must  never  be 
broken ;  that  if  a  military  man  engaged  himself 
to  do  a  certain  thing,  he  must  do  it  at  whatever 
cost  to  himself.  That  was  not  truth  for  truth's 
sake :  it  was  truth  for  the  sake  of  the  spirit  of 
uncompromising  manliness  on  which  the  samurai 
based  all  his  code  of  morality.  His  doctrine 
gradually  permeated  society  at  large.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  written  security  for  a  debt 
took  the  form,  not  of  the  hypothecation  of  prop- 
erty, but  of  an  avowal  that  failure  to  pay  would 
be  to  forfeit  the  debtor's  title  of  manhood,  or  to 
confer  on  the  creditor  the  right  of  publicly  ridi- 
culing him.  Had  such  a  principle  continued  to 
grow  in  reverence,  it  would  have  served  as  an 
excellent  substitute  for  industrial  veracity.  But 
the  development  of  luxurious  and  effeminate 
habits  during  the  long  reign  of  peace  under  the 
Tokugawa  administration,  undermined  the  virile 
morality  of  the  bushi.  His  ideals  deteriorated 
and  his  example  ceased  to  be  a  wholesome  incen- 
tive. At  the  commencement  of  Japan's  resumed 
intercourse  with  foreign  nations  in  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  samurai  visited  the 
open  ports  to  transact  business  for  their  liege 
lords,  and  the  foreign  merchant  soon  learned  that 
their  word  was  as  good  as  their  bond.  Pride  of 

200 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

race  in  the  presence  of  the  alien  reinforced  their 
weakened  pride  of  manhood  and  held  them  faith- 
ful to  their  engagements.  But  it  has  ever  been 
the  experience  of  the  foreigner  that  no  such 
fidelity  can  be  expected  as  a  common  trait  of  the 
business  man's  character  in  Japan. 

The  devoted  fealty  of  the  samurai  towards  his 
feudal  chief  cannot  be  said  to  have  extended  to 
his  attitude  towards  the  sovereign.  To  the  ma- 
jority of  the  military  class  the  Throne  seems  to 
have  presented  itself  in  the  light  of  a  compar- 
atively unimportant  abstraction.  If  the  great 
Court  nobles  made  a  puppet  of  the  Emperor  in 
the  early  eras,  the  bushi  showed  even  less  rever- 
ence in  their  bearing  towards  him  in  mediasval 
times,  and  that  the  tendency  of  their  minds  was 
not  in  any  sense  monarchical  is  a  conclusion 
which  forces  itself  upon  the  attention  of  any 
careful  reader  of  Japanese  annals.  Kiso  Yoshi- 
naka,  the  "  Morning  Sun  Shogun"  who  struck  the 
first  strong  blow  at  the  power  of  the  Taira  in  the 
twelfth  century,  openly  declared  that  the  ex-Em- 
peror was  a  monk,  the  Emperor  himself,  a  baby, 
and  the  Regent  (Kwampaku}  a  greater  man  than 
either  of  them.  This  mood  showed  itself  very 
strongly  in  the  time  of  the  Hojo.  At  the  out- 
set of  their  career  they  came  into  collision  with 
the  Throne,  and  they  marked  their  victory  by 
deposing  an  Emperor  and  banishing  three  ex- 
Emperors  to  remote  islands.  Such  arbitrary  pro- 
ceedings did  not  shock  the  bulk  of  the  samurai. 

20 1 


JAPAN 

They  spoke  of  the  attempt  made  by  the  ex-Em- 
peror Gotoba  to  free  himself  from  the  Kama- 
kura  yoke  as  "  the  rebellion "  of  the  sovereign. 
In  their  eyes  the  repository  of  the  administrative 
power,  namely,  the  Vicegerent  in  Kamakura, 
was  the  ruler  of  the  Empire,  and  any  one,  of 
whatever  station,  that  ventured  to  oppose  him 
was  counted  a  rebel.  A  further  development  of 
this  tendency  took  place  under  the  administration 
of  the  same  chieftains :  their  conception  of  the 
best  form  of  government  was  evidently  a  mili- 
tary oligarchy  based  on  popular  approval.  The 
second  of  that  remarkable  line  of  Vicegerents,  in 
conjunction  with  his  twelve  councillors,  promul- 
gated a  constitution  of  fifty  articles,  founded  on 
the  principles  of  humanity  and  justice,  without 
any  reference  to  stereotyped  formulas  about  the 
virtues  and  divinity  of  the  Throne.  It  is 
true  that  Yasutoki  himself,  like  all  the  great 
Hojo  chiefs,  made  no  attempt  to  usurp  high 
office.  But  he  did  not  hesitate  to  exercise  su- 
preme authority.  Some  account  must  be  taken, 
indeed,  of  the  Imperial  Court's  signal  failures  to 
inspire  respect  at  that  epoch.  The  Emperor 
Shijo  amused  himself  by  having  the  floors  of  the 
Palace  salons  waxed  so  that  the  ladies  of  the 
Court  might  fall  when  they  walked  on  them. 
Finally  he  fell  himself  and  died  of  the  injuries 
received.  No  one  then  doubted  that  the  power 
to  nominate  the  next  sovereign  rested  with  the 
Hojo  chief,  nor  did  he  show  any  hesitation  in 

202 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

choosing  a  Prince  whose  father  had  stood  aloof 
from  all  intrigues  against  Kamakura.  When  the 
delegate  to  whom  Yasutoki  entrusted  the  com- 
mission of  enthroning  the  new  sovereign,  asked 
what  he  should  do  if,  on  reaching  Kyoto,  he 
found  that  the  succession  had  already  become 
an  accomplished  fact,  Yasutoki  replied  briefly : 
"  Never  mind.  Only  take  care  that  my  nominee 
ascends  the  Throne."  If  one  of  the  Imperial 
Princes  despatched  from  Kyoto  to  fill  the  office 
of  Shogun  in  Kamakura,  was  found  an  undesirable 
personage,  the  Hojo  sent  him  back,  and  the 
samurai  spoke  of  him  as  having  been  "  exiled  " 
to  Kyoto.  It  was  also  by  a  Hojo  Vicegerent 
that  the  Imperial  line  was  divided  into  two 
branches  privileged  to  occupy  the  Throne  alter- 
nately for  ten  years.  The  limit  of  the  time  was 
arithmetically  fair,  for  the  reigns  of  the  fifteen 
sovereigns,  from  the  eightieth  to  the  ninety- 
fourth,  immediately  preceding  this  new  regime, 
had  averaged  only  nine  years.  But  the  people 
could  not  fail  to  see  that  the  sacred  right  of  suc- 
cession and  the  whole  theory  of  the  Emperor's 
relations  to  his  people  were  violated  by  an 
arrangement  which  made  two  Imperial  families 
competitors  for  a  decennial  tenure  of  the  Crown, 
and  substituted  the  fiat  of  a  subject  for  the  divine 
title  of  the  sovereign.  The  last  of  the  Hojo 
Vicegerents,  Takatoki,  did  no  violence  to  the 
customs  of  his  time  when  he  sent  a  force  of 
soldiers  to  Kyoto  to  dethrone  the  Emperor,  and 

203 


JAPAN 

thus  became  responsible  for  the  spectacle  of  a 
sovereign  fleeing  from  his  palace  disguised  in  fe- 
male garments.  This  oligarchical  tendency  did 
not  undergo  any  change  with  the  fall  of  the  Hojo. 
Kono  Moronao,  the  commander  of  the  first  Ash- 
ikaga  Chief's  soldiers,  instructed  his  followers 
thus :  "If  you  want  estates,  take  those  of  the 
Emperor.  A  living  Emperor  is  a  mere  waster 
of  the  world's  substance,  and  an  obstacle  to  the 
people.  He  is  not  a  necessity,  but  if  we  must 
have  him,  a  wooden  effigy  will  do  equally  well." 
Probably  such  an  extreme  view  had  few  adher- 
ents, but  its  expression  did  not  provoke  any  re- 
monstrance. Hideyoshi,  the  Taiko,  adopted  a 
more  respectful  attitude  towards  the  Throne, 
though  in  some  respects  he  was  essentially  demo- 
cratic. Thus  he  showed  absolute  indifference  to 
aristocratic  claims  in  choosing  his  assistants,  being 
guided  solely  by  his  judgment  of  a  man's  ca- 
pacity. Among  his  great  captains,  Fukushima 
Masanori  was  originally  a  carpenter ;  Kato  Kiyo- 
masa,  a  nameless  nobody  like  the  'Taik'o  himself; 
Konishi  Yukinaga,  the  son  of  a  druggist ;  Ishida 
Katsushige,  a  page  in  a  temple.  But  recognising 
the  necessity  of  hiding  his  own  lowly  birth  under 
the  shadow  of  a  great  office  —  that  of  regent  — 
he  was  careful  to  exalt  the  giver  of  the  office. 
Hence  the  Imperial  Court  fared  well  at  his 
hands.  Yet  one  of  Hideyoshi's  deliberate  acts 
was  strikingly  inconsistent  with  any  genuine 
sense  of  the  dignity  of  the  sovereign.  At  a 

204 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

banquet  in  his  castle  at  Fushimi,  to  which  the 
Emperor,  the  Empress,  and  the  Prince  of  the 
Blood  repaired,  he  presented  a  sum  of  5,530  ryb 
to  the  sovereign,  and  gave  five  hundred  koku  of 
rice  to  the  Empress,  and  three  hundred  to  the 
Princes.  Moreover,  while  strictly  forbidding 
the  general  use  of  the  chrysanthemum  and  paul- 
lownia  badges,  on  the  ground  that  they  apper- 
tained solely  to  the  sovereign,  he  not  only  used 
them  himself,  but  gave  surcoats  on  which  they 
were  blazoned  as  rewards  to  his  followers.  It 
seems,  in  short,  to  have  been  his  purpose  to  show 
that  while  the  Throne  should  be  stable,  it  owed 
its  stability  to  the  support  of  great  subjects  like 
himself.  lyeyasu,  the  founder  of  the  Tokugawa 
dynasty,  undoubtedly  aimed  at  establishing  his 
government  on  the  will  of  the  people.  It  may 
be  true  that,  at  times,  the  fortunes  of  his  own 
house  assumed  larger  dimensions  on  his  political 
horizon  than  the  interests  of  the  nation :  that 
would  have  been  natural  in  the  greatest  states- 
man born  amid  such  circumstances.  But  the 
words  addressed  by  him  to  the  nobles  who  sur- 
rounded his  death-bed  were  unequivocal :  "  My 
son  has  now  come  of  age.  I  feel  no  anxiety  for 
the  future  of  the  State.  But  should  my  successor 
commit  any  grave  fault  in  his  administration,  do 
you  administer  affairs  yourselves.  The  country 
is  not  the  country  of  one  man,  but  the  country 
of  the  nation.  If  my  descendants  lose  their 
power  because  of  their  own  misdeeds,  I  shall  not 

205 


JAPAN 

regret  it."  To  his  son,  Hidetada,  he  said; 
"  Take  care  of  the  people.  Strive  to  be  virtuous. 
Never  neglect  to  protect  the  country.'*  The 
spirit  of  such  injunctions  is  plain.  It  is  true  that 
this  remarkable  statesman  increased  the  allow- 
ances for  the  maintenance  of  the  Emperor  and 
the  Imperial  Family,  and  did  nothing  to  impair 
the  stability  of  the  Throne.  But  he  emphati- 
cally asserted  the  absolute  right  of  the  Shogun  to 
exercise  the  executive  authority  independently 
of  the  sovereign,  himself  accepting,  at  the 
same  time,  the  responsibility  of  preserving  pub- 
lic peace  and  good  order.  Further  a  code  of 
eighteen  laws  enacted  by  him  for  the  control  of 
the  fiefs  had  his  signature  only,  and  did  not  bear 
the  Sign  Manual. 

That  the  anti-monarchical  tendencies  of  the 
bushi  were  recognised  by  some  deep  thinkers 
among  themselves  may  be  clearly  gathered  from 
the  doctrine  enunciated  by  Kumazawa  Banzan, 
chief  vassal  of  the  Okayama  fief,  at  the  close  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  He  taught  that  the 
mission  of  a  lord  was  to  develop  the  welfare 
of  his  people ;  that  the  Emperor  was  the  true 
head  of  the  nation,  the  Shogun  being  only  His 
Majesty's  lieutenant ;  and  that  the  samurai  were 
mere  bandits,  regarding  the  sovereign  as  a 
wooden  idol  and  the  common  people  as  dust.  To 
find  any  one  advocating  such  views  in  feudal 
Japan  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century 
seems  as  remarkable  as  the  fact  that  Banzan  was 

206 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

suffered  to  ventilate  them  freely,  and  that  when 
he  lectured  in  Yedo,  the  very  stronghold  of  the 
samurai's  power,  all  the  magnates  went  to  hear 
him.  In  his  eyes  the  word  "  people  "  meant  not 
the  military  class  only,  but  the  nation  at  large. 
He  enunciated  the  theory  which  was  carried  into 
practice  a  century  and  a  half  later  at  the  Meiji 
Restoration.  Nor  did  he  stand  alone  in  his  pe- 
culiar beliefs.  His  contemporary,  Hotta  Masa- 
toshi,  chief  Minister  of  the  Sfiogun  Tsunayoshi, 
fearlessly  proclaimed  the  doctrine  that "  the  people 
are  the  basis  of  a  nation,"  and  sought  to  give 
it  practical  effect  by  protecting  the  agricultural 
classes,  and  inculcating  the  principles  of  loyalty 
to  the  sovereign,  the  people's  father.  These  men 
were  the  outcome  of  a  reaction  against  the  master- 
ful demeanour  of  the  bushi  towards  the  non-mili- 
tary classes  of  the  people,  and  against  his  often 
displayed  disposition  to  make  light  of  the  Throne. 
In  the  dying  words  of  lyeyasu,  quoted  above, 
a  strong  note  of  patriotism  is  audible.  As  he 
closed  his  eyes  on  the  world  where  he  had  played 
such  a  conspicuous  part,  the  welfare  of  the  country 
concerned  him  more  than  the  permanence  of  the 
magnificent  position  he  had  won  for  his  own 
family.  But  in  the  sayings  and  doings  of  the 
bushi  generally,  from  the  Heian  era  down  to  the 
close  of  the  Military  epoch,  no  evidence  appears 
that  love  of  country  was  ever  a  dominant  senti- 
ment, if  the  fact  be  excepted  that  they  spoke  of 
the  spirit  animating  themselves,  the  spirit  of  the 

207 


JAPAN 

samurai,  as  Tamato-damashii^  thus  assigning  to  it 
a  national  character.  There  was  in  truth  nothing 
in  the  conditions  or  incidents  of  their  existence  to 
educate  patriotism,  —  no  rivalry  with  other  States, 
no  struggle  for  the  safety  of  altar  and  hearth. 
The  security  and  prosperity  of  the  fief  to  which 
each  bushi  belonged  were  the  limits  of  his  mental 
horizon.  Nevertheless,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Meiji  era,  there  suddenly  flamed  up  throughout 
the  whole  nation  a  fire  of  patriotism  which  burned 
thenceforth  with  almost  fierce  strength.  The 
Tamato-damashii  ceased  to  be  a  theoretical  senti- 
ment and  became  a  practical  inspiration.  Men 
of  the  samurai  class  devoted  themselves  with  ab- 
sorbing energy  to  the  task  of  raising  their  country's 
international  status.  Nothing  in  their  history  sug- 
gested the  probability  of  such  a  display  of  vigorous 
patriotism.  The  explanation,  however,  is  simple. 
What  stirred  their  hearts  so  profoundly  was  the 
discovery  that  in  many  of  the  essentials  of  material 
civilisation  their  country  was  separated  by  an  im- 
mense interval  from  Occidental  States.  They 
found  that,  during  centuries  of  seclusion,  Japan 
had  fallen  far  behind  Europe  and  America  in  the 
race  of  progress,  and  that  unless  she  was  to  lie 
permanently  under  the  reproach  of  semi-barbar- 
ism, a  strong  effort  on  the  part  of  her  people  was 
necessary.  Such  ready  recognition  of  an  unwel- 
come fact  reflects  credit  on  their  intelligence. 
But  that  phase  of  the  matter  need  not  be  con- 

1  See  Appendix,  note  35. 

208 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

sidered  here.     The  point  deserving  emphasis  is 
that,  prior  to  the  abolition  of  feudalism  in  the 
Meijt  era  and  the  re-commencement  of  foreign 
intercourse,  there  had  been  no  evidences  of  the 
existence  of  patriotism  among  the  Japanese  peo- 
ple, and  that  the  event  which  evoked  the  senti- 
ment was   well   calculated  to   produce   such   an 
effect.     In  the  sixteenth  century,  when  object- 
lessons  in  the  nature  and  quality  of  Occidental 
civilisation  were  first  submitted  for  Japanese  in- 
spection by  the  Portuguese  and  the  Dutch,  no 
marked  superiority  could  be  claimed  for  the  for- 
eign systems.     On    the   contrary,   the    strangers 
presented  themselves  in  the  guise  of  truculent, 
law-despising,   covetous,  and   uncultured    adven- 
turers, their  minds  degraded  by  the  pursuit  of 
gain,   which  the   bushi  held  in  traditional   con- 
tempt, and   their   manners  disfigured   by  a  lack 
of  the  courtesies  and  conventionalities  so   scru- 
pulously observed  in  Japan  ;  whereas  the  appli- 
ances and  contrivances  of  their  civilisation  were 
very  little  better  than  those  of  the  Japanese,  and 
the  aesthetic  side  of  their  nature  was  apparently 
quite  undeveloped.     But  when,  after  an  interval 
of  more  than  two  centuries,  they  appeared  once 
more  upon  the  scene,  everything  had  changed. 
The  locomotive,  the  steamship,  the  telegraph,  the 
man-of-war,  the  rifle,  the  machinery  of  manufac- 
ture —  all  these  and  many  other  striking  features 
were  absolutely  novel.     The  display  dazzled  the 
Japanese  completely,  and  stirred  them  to  such  a 

VOL.    II.    14 


JAPAN 

sense  of  their  country's  inferiority  that  men  who 
had  never  previously  looked  beyond  the  fortunes 
of  the  fief  to  which  they  owed  allegiance,  now 
fixed  their  eyes  on  Japan  as  a  whole,  and  became 
haunted  by  a  feverish  longing  to  raise  her  rapidly 
from  the  lowly  place  she  occupied.  Nothing 
short  of  direct  association  with  the  Japanese 
samurai  of  that  era  could  convey  a  just  idea  of 
their  importunate  anxiety  to  bring  Japan  "  abreast 
of  Western  nations."  That  phrase  (gaikoku  to  kata 
'wo  naraberii)  was  perpetually  in  their  mouths. 
Had  the  feudal  system  survived,  their  energy  of 
effort  would  have  been  exerted  on  behalf  of  each 
fief  separately ;  but  feudalism  having  disappeared, 
it  was  upon  the  country  at  large  that  the  stigma 
of  international  deficiency  fell,  and  it  was  of  the 
country  as  a  whole  that  men  thought  with  solici- 
tude. It  is  true  that  Japan  had  always  been  es- 
teemed by  its  people  a  land  of  divine  origin,  and 
very  likely  that  estimate  helped  to  accentuate  the 
chagrin  of  discovering  her  inferiority  in  matters 
of  material  civilisation.  But  if  the  teachings  of 
history  be  of  any  value,  the  conclusion  is  inevit- 
able that,  so  far  as  practical  displays  are  concerned, 
Japanese  patriotism  is  a  sentiment  of  modern  de- 
velopment, and  that  those  who  claim  any  excep- 
tional wealth  of  innate  patriotism  for  her  people 
must  be  classed  as  emotional  partisans  rather  than 
as  sober  annalists. 

In    this    context   another   cognate  point   may 
conveniently  be  noticed.     It  is  usually  said  of 

210 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

the  modern  Japanese  that  their  loyalty  to  the 
Throne  is  limitless,  and  that  a  counterpart  can- 
not be  found  elsewhere.  The  Japanese  them- 
selves assert  the  fact ;  assert  it  with  vehemence 
and  insistence  calculated  to  suggest  doubt  rather 
than  to  inspire  confidence.  But  the  above  his- 
torical analysis  shows  conclusively  that  if  loyalty 
to  the  Throne  survived  down  to  the  Meiji  era,  it 
did  so  in  spite  of  frequent  encroachments  upon 
the  Imperial  prerogatives  and  constant  displays  of 
disrespect ;  that  it  seldom  or  never  took  the  form 
of  practical  reverence,  and  that  its  existence  as  a 
directing  influence  could  not  possibly  be  inferred 
from  the  conduct  of  either  the  bushi  or  the  Court 
nobles  in  ante-Meiji  days.  In  short,  like  his 
feverish  patriotism,  the  almost  delirious  loyalty 
of  the  modern  Japanese,  though  its  roots  may  be 
planted  in  the  soil  of  a  very  ancient  creed,  never 
showed  any  signs  of  vigorous  growth  until  the 
profound  fealty  of  the  bushi  towards  their  liege 
lords  was  transferred,  after  the  abolition  of  feudal- 
ism, to  the  only  figure  that  had  survived  all  vicis- 
situdes, the  sovereign.  It  is  not  intended  to  deny 
that  loyalty  to  the  Throne  partakes  of  the  char- 
acter of  a  religion  in  modern  Japan,  and  that  the 
people's  reverence  for  the  Sovereign  amounts 
almost  to  worship.  But  with  the  frequently 
asserted  claim  that  such  loyalty  is  traditional, 
such  reverence  hereditary,  it  is  impossible  for 
any  careful  student  of  history  to  fully  agree.1 

1  See  Appendix,  note  36. 

211 


JAPAN 

The  ties  of  consanguinity  snapped  easily  in 
mediaeval  Japan  when  subjected  to  the  strain  of 
ambition  or  of  loyalty.  A  vassal's  duty  to  his 
chief  outweighed  the  claims  of  filial  piety,  and 
men  were  frequently  confronted  by  the  dilemma 
of  having  to  choose  between  the  two  during  an 
era  when  great  houses,  whose  heads  and  depend- 
ents had  long  been  on  terms  of  close  friendship 
and  intermarriage,  were  driven  by  the  exigencies 
of  the  time  into  opposite  camps.  On  the  eve  of 
the  fight  at  Sekigahara  which  finally  established 
the  Tokugawa  sway  over  the  whole  of  Japan, 
Sanada  Masayuki  and  his  two  sons,  Nobuyuki 
and  Yukimasa,  had  to  consider  whether  they 
would  join  the  Tokugawa  chief,  lyeyasu,  or 
enter  the  camp  of  his  enemies,  the  Osaka  party. 
The  old  man  declared  that  his  obligations  to  the 
Tokugawa  bound  him  to  their  side ;  his  sons 
said  that  they  could  not  forget  what  the  Taiko 
had  done  for  their  family,  and  that  they  would 
sacrifice  their  lives  in  the  Osaka  cause.  The 
three  men  parted  in  the  most  friendly  manner. 
It  is  recorded  that  Masayuki  then  repaired  to  the 
house  of  his  elder  son  in  order  to  bid  a  last  fare- 
well to  his  daughter-in-law  and  his  grandchild. 
But  Nobuyuki's  wife  would  not  admit  him. 
"  The  bond  of  parent  and  child  is  broken,"  she 
said,  "  since  each  has  espoused  a  different  cause. 
I  should  be  untrue  to  my  husband  if  I  did  not 
exclude  from  his  house  an  ally  of  his  enemy/' 
The  old  man  expressed  profound  satisfaction  with 

212 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

a  reply  so  true  to  the  dictates  of  the  Bushi-do. 
He  survived  the  battle,  but  his  two  sons  perished. 

The  spirit  dictating  such  acts  is  well  displayed 
in  a  letter  addressed  by  the  mother  of  Koda 
Hikoyemon  to  her  son.  The  latter  with  his 
liege  lord,  Oda  Nobutaka,  had  espoused  the 
cause  of  the  Taiko's  enemies,  and  thus  the  lives 
of  Hikoyemon's  mother  and  of  Nobutaka's 
mother,  who  were  held  hostages  in  the  Tat&b's 
hands,  became  forfeit.  The  Taiko  threatened  to 
put  the  women  to  death  unless  their  sons  returned 
to  his  camp,  whereupon  Hikoyemon's  mother 
wrote  to  her  son  :  "  Fealty  to  his  lord  is  the  first 
duty  of  every  man  in  the  empire,  and  it  is  the 
law  of  nature  that  parents  should  die  before  their 
children.  My  life  is  sacrificed  to  the  cause  of 
our  lord  and  the  cause  of  our  house.  Let  no  one 
mourn  for  me.  Do  you,  true  to  the  way  of  the 
warrior  and  the  path  of  filial  piety,  remember 
that  to  have  a  mother  is  no  reason  to  be  un- 
faithful." This  brave  lady  was  crucified. 

Nevertheless  no  pledge  was  regarded  as  better 
securing  the  observance  of  a  promise  than  to  give 
one's  mother  as  a  hostage.  The  Taiko 9  when  all 
other  means  of  winning  the  confidence  of  lyeyasu 
had  failed,  placed  his  mother  in  the  hands  of  the 
Tokugawa  chief,  and  at  once  obtained  the  latter's 
trust.  Oda  Nobunaga  lost  his  life  by  disregard- 
ing such  a  pledge.  Among  his  captains  was 
Akechi  Mitsuhide,  a  brave  soldier  and  skilled 
leader  but  eccentric  and  sensitive.  Besieging  a 

213 


JAPAN 

castle  in  Tamba,  Mitsuhide  induced  its  holders, 
two  brothers,  to  surrender  by  giving  his  mother 
as  a  hostage  that  their  lives  should  be  spared. 
But  Nobunaga  ordered  the  two  men  to  be  burned 
at  the  stake.  Their  followers  then  inflicted  the 
same  fate  on  Mitsuhide's  mother,  and  Mitsuhide 
avenged  her  by  rebelling  against  Nobunaga  and 
compassing  his  death.  So,  too,  the  value  of 
family  relations  was  recognised  in  the  celebrated 
campaign  which  the  Kamakura  men  undertook 
against  Kyoto  at  the  instance  of  Masa,  Yoritomo's 
widow.  In  order  to  guard  against  disaffection  at 
the  eleventh  hour,  a  danger  not  to  be  slighted 
inasmuch  as  the  war  was  virtually  a  rebellion 
against  the  Emperor,  the  Kamakura  chiefs 
divided  their  soldiers  so  that,  if  a  father  went 
with  the  army,  his  son  remained  in  Kamakura, 
and  if  one  brother  was  despatched  to  the  south, 
another  stayed  in  the  north. 

Neglect  of  family  ties  in  deference  to  fealty 
was  a  respectable  act  compared  with  the  un- 
natural sacrifices  made  at  the  shrine  of  ambition. 
From  the  time  (i  156)  when,  in  the  Hogen  insur- 
rection, two  brothers  fought  against  two  brothers, 
a  father  against  his  son,  and  a  nephew  against  his 
uncle,  the  annals  are  disfigured  by  many  such 
incidents.  Yoritomo  destroyed  his  brothers,  his 
uncle,  and  his  cousin.  His  widow  Masa  did 
her  step-son  to  death.  Nobunaga  waged  war 
with  his  father-in-law  and  his  brother-in-law. 
Takeda  Harunobu  fought  against  his  father, 

214 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

Nobutora.  Takauji  caused  his  nephew  to  be 
poisoned.  There  is  no  lack  of  these  occurrences. 
It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  the  necessity  of  con- 
stantly subduing  emotions  which  human  nature 
has  endowed  with  paramount  force,  created  a 
special  moral  perspective  for  the  bushi,  and 
dwarfed  his  estimate  of  sentiments  that  exercise 
dominant  sway  over  normally  constituted  minds. 
Throughout  his  whole  career  he  had  to  hold 
himself  ready  to  calmly  face  catastrophes  in  com- 
parison with  which  all  tender  emotions  seemed 
insignificant,  and  there  is  no  difficulty  in  con- 
ceiving that  the  stoicism  he  was  expected  to 
show  in  the  presence  of  deadly  peril  obtruded 
itself  into  relations  of  life  where  its  display  was 
incongruous  and  unbecoming. 

Ruthlessness  frequently  evinced  towards  van- 
quished foes  was  another  example  of  the  callous- 
ness educated  in  the  bushi  by  the  scenes  of 
bloodshed  among  which  he  lived.  When,  in 
consequence  of  falling  under  suspicion  of  treason, 
Hidetsugu,  the  Taiko' s  adopted  son,  was  ordered 
to  commit  suicide,  his  wife,  his  concubine,  and 
his  children  were  all  put  to  death  without  mercy 
by  order  of  the  Taiko.  The  Tokugawa  chief, 
lyeyasu,  showed  similar  inclemency.  After  he 
had  effected  the  final  conquest  of  the  Osaka 
party,  he  put  to  death  all  the  relatives  and  sur- 
viving supporters  of  its  leader.  Certainly  in  thus 
acting,  the  Taiko  and  lyeyasu  merely  followed  a 
custom  approved  by  many  generations.  "  Com- 

215 


JAPAN 

prehensive  punishment "  had  long  been  counted 
one  of  the  administrator's  most  effective  weapons. 
If  a  farmer  absconded  leaving  his  taxes  unpaid, 
or  fled  to  another  district  in  the  hope  of  finding 
lighter  feudal  burdens,  his  whole  family,  his 
relatives  and  his  friends,  were  included  in  the 
circle  of  his  penalty.  No  more  profoundly  pa- 
thetic spectacle  presents  itself  in  all  the  drama  of 
Japanese  history  than  the  fate  of  the  family  of 
Sogoro,  the  noble  farmer  who,  because  he  pre- 
sented a  petition  on  behalf  of  his  tax-burdened 
fellow-rustics,  was  crucified  with  his  wife  and 
two  little  sons.  The  only  excuse,  a  very  slender 
one,  that  can  be  offered  for  such  cruelty  is  that 
this  device  of  converting  a  man's  relatives  and 
friends  into  constables  interested  in  securing  his 
obedience  to  the  laws,  was  not  of  Japanese  origin. 
It  had  been  borrowed,  in  the  seventh  century, 
from  China,  where  the  chain  of  vicarious  respon- 
sibility used  to  be  drawn  out  to  extraordinary 
length.  But  no  era  of  Japanese  annals  was  more 
disfigured  by  its  exercise  than  the  centuries  of 
the  bush? s  supremacy.  The  plea  of  established 
custom  is  not  without  validity.  But  what  can 
extenuate  the  conduct  of  lyeyasu  when  he  caused 
his  wife  to  be  executed  for  plotting  against  him, 
and  compelled  his  son  to  commit  suicide  in  expia- 
tion of  a  crime  which  the  unfortunate  youth  had 
not  been  proved  to  have  committed,  and,  in  fact, 
had  not  committed ;  or  of  lyemitsu,  the  third 
Tokugawa  Shogun,  who  condemned  his  brother 

216 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

to  a  similar  fate  ?  It  is  evident  that  the  habit  of 
despising  wounds  and  death  when  they  fell  to  his 
own  lot,  taught  the  bushi  to  deal  them  out  to 
others  with  indifference.  Cruelty  in  his  case 
sprang  from  callousness  to  suffering  rather  than 
from  vindictiveness.  His  faculty  of  intellectual 
realisation  had  been  blunted  by  the  stoicism  he 
was  compelled  to  practise. 

No  feature  of  the  bushi 's  character  is  more 
discreditable  than  his  slavish  yielding  to  the 
erotic  passion.  In  the  camp,  where  the  presence 
of  women  was  generally  impossible,  he  thought 
no  shame  of  resorting  to  unnatural  liaisons,  and 
out  of  that  indulgence  there  grew  a  perverted 
code  of  morality  which  surrounded  such  acts 
with  a  halo  of  martial  manliness.1  But  in 
that  respect  the  conduct  of  the  Japanese  samurai 
is  deprived  of  singularity  by  numerous  counter- 
parts in  other  countries.  What  differentiates 
him  is  his  undisguised  indifference  to  chastity 
for  its  own  sake,  as  well  as  to  the  obligations  im- 
posed by  the  marriage  tie.  It  is  remarkable 
that  Buddhism,  which  in  all  its  forms,  with  one 
exception,  insisted  upon  the  observance  of  celi- 
bacy by  its  ministers,  failed  completely,  in  the 
case  of  its  disciples,  to  subject  the  passions  of 
the  flesh  to  any  of  the  restraints  that  Chris- 
tianity enforced  so  successfully  in  Imperial  Rome. 
In  vain  the  student  looks  among  the  heroes  of 
the  Military  epoch  for  a  man  who  made  purity 

1  See   Appendix,  note  37. 


JAPAN 

an  ideal,  continence  a  duty,  or  conjugal  fidelity 
a  law.  The  Taira  chief,  Kiyomori,  regarded 
women  as  mere  playthings,  and  indulged  the 
caprices  of  his  passion  with  absolute  shameless- 
ness.  After  he  had  overthrown  his  enemy 
Yoshitomo,  the  head  of  the  Minamoto  clan,  he 
succumbed  to  the  beauty  of  the  latter's  concubine, 
Tokiwa,  and  in  order  to  purchase  her  complai- 
sance saved  the  lives  of  her  three  sons,  by  whom 
the  power  of  his  house  was  subsequently  crushed. 
Yoshitsune,  the  so-called  Bayard  of  Japanese 
history,  left  a  very  tarnished  record.  In  the  days 
of  his  insignificance  he  won  the  love  of  Toruri- 
hime,  whose  sorrows  endowed  her  country  with 
a  new  branch  of  dramatic  literature.  From  her 
he  transferred  his  affections  to  the  daughter  of 
Kiichi  Hogen,  for  the  sake  of  gaining  access  to 
a  strategical  treatise  in  the  possession  of  her 
father.  At  the  battle  of  Dan-no-ura  he  appro- 
priated the  wife  of  an  Imperial  prince,  and  his 
escape  from  Kyoto  in  the  hour  of  his  broken 
fortunes  received  a  special  tinge  of  romance  from 
his  parting  with  the  beautiful  dancing-girl  Shi- 
zuka.  Yoshinaka,  the  first  of  the  Minamoto  to 
shake  the  Taira's  power,  derives  something  of 
his  fame  from  the  military  prowess  of  his  con- 
cubine Tomoye,  but  his  biographers  take  little 
notice  of  the  fact  that  his  infatuation  for  Matsu, 
a  lady  of  noble  lineage,  contributed  to  his  down- 
fall. Even  when  the  enemy  were  at  the  gates 
he  could  not  tear  himself  from  her  pillow,  nor 

218 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

did  he  regard  the  call  of  duty  until  a  faithful 
vassal  committed  suicide  to  emphasise  a  remon- 
strance against  such  weakness.  Nitta  Yoshisada, 
the  type  of  a  loyal  soldier  in  his  time,  lost  the 
opportunity  of  his  life  and  sacrificed  the  cause  of 
his  sovereign  through  his  passion  for  a  Court 
beauty  whom  the  Emperor  had  bestowed  on 
him.  When  the  Ashikaga  leader,  Takauji,  his 
forces  shattered  in  battle,  fled  westward,  Yoshi- 
sada might  have  consummated  his  final  over- 
throw by  immediate  pursuit.  He  repaired, 
instead,  to  the  arms  of  his  mistress.  Kono 
Moronao,  Takauji's  principal  captain,  by  endeav- 
ouring to  compass  a  man's  death  in  order  to 
enjoy  his  wife,  drove  them  both  to  commit 
suicide,  and  subsequently  abducted  an  ex-Regent's 
sister  who  had  been  destined  for  service  at  Court. 
The  lady  Yodo,  most  beloved  of  the  Taikd's 
concubines,  had  been  entrusted  to  his  protection 
by  the  noble  soldier  Shibata  Katsuiye  when  the 
latter  was  on  the  eve  of  perishing  by  his  own 
hand  in  his  beleaguered  castle.  Matsu,  who 
occupied  the  next  place  in  the  Taiko's  affections, 
was  obtained  by  a  political  ruse ;  and,  most  shame- 
ful of  all,  he  invented  a  paltry  pretext  to  order  the 
suicide  of  his  old  friend,  the  gentle  dilettante 
Sen-no-Rikiu,  because  the  latter  declined  to  urge 
his  daughter  to  break  a  vow  of  fidelity  to  her 
deceased  husband  by  receiving  the  Tat&o's  ad- 
dresses.1 lyeyasu,  the  great  Tokugawa  chief, 

1  See  Appendix,  note  38. 

219 


JAPAN 

employed  his  power  in  a  singular  fashion. 
A  high  official  had  caused  a  man  to  be  put  to 
death  on  a  trumped-up  accusation  in  order  to 
possess  himself  of  the  widow.  She,  flying  to  the 
castle  of  lyeyasu,  made  her  complaint ;  where- 
upon the  Tokugawa  ruler  ordered  the  official  to 
commit  suicide,  and  then  compelled  the  woman 
to  become  his  own  concubine.  These  examples 
constitute  only  a  fraction  of  the  recorded  cata- 
logue, but,  on  the  other  side,  there  is  nowhere 
to  be  seen  a  figure  ennobled  by  purity  of  life  ; 
nowhere  a  man  whose  love  of  one  woman  and 
one  only  stands  prominent  among  the  motives  of 
his  great  deeds.  Such  men  there  may  have 
been,  but  they  are  not  found  among  the  makers 
of  the  nation's  history.  To  woman  alone  was 
left  the  honour  of  practising  conjugal  fidelity  and 
virtuous  self-restraint,  and  the  ideal  of  objective 
virtue  she  attained  contrasts  vividly  with  the 
abyss  of  self-indulgence  into  which  the  other 
sex  fell. 

Abuse  of  the  marital  tie  inflicted  its  own  pen- 
alty. In  ancient  and  in  mediaeval  days  the  most 
prolific  source  of  dissension  was  succession  to  an 
estate.  Nearly  every  man  of  rank  or  station  had 
at  least  one  concubine  as  well  as  a  wife,  and  in  the 
absence  of  an  heir  born  of  the  latter  the  former 
perpetually  intrigued  to  have  her  son  declared 
heir  in  preference  to  the  next  of  kin  or  to  the 
son  by  adoption.  Then  it  happened,  not  infre- 
quently, that  after  an  illegitimate  child  had  been 

220 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

made  heir,  a  son  was  born  to  the  wife,  and  in- 
trigues at  once  commenced  to  obtain  the  succes- 
sion for  the  legitimate  offspring.  Such  a  change 
seems  natural ;  but  in  the  interval  before  the  birth 
of  the  legitimate  child,  it  often  happened  that  the 
question  had  been  complicated  by  many  newly 
formed  relations  of  which  the  concubine  took 
advantage  to  prevent  the  deposition  of  her  off- 
spring. Again  and  again  troubles  involving  large 
sections  of  the  feudal  aristocracy  grew  out  of 
these  complications,  and  the  Taiko,  sensible  of  the 
necessity  of  removing  such  a  factor  of  disturbance, 
attempted,  first,  to  interdict  the  keeping  of  con- 
cubines in  general,  and  then  had  recourse  to  the 
less  drastic  method  of  declaring  two  the  maxi- 
mum number.  His  panegyrists  have  inferred 
from  this  veto  a  high  moral  aim.  But  the  Taiko 
has  no  title  to  such  praise.  When  a  Christian 
propagandist  preached  to  him  the  doctrine  of 
one  consort  only  for  one  husband,  he  said, 
"  Relax  that  restriction  and  I  might  believe 
your  teaching."  His  legislation  was  dictated 
by  considerations  of  expediency  only.  Naturally 
it  proved  abortive. 

It  is  a  philosophical  tenet  that  the  imagination 
in  its  first  stages  concentrates  itself  on  individuals  ; 
then,  by  an  effort  of  abstraction,  rises  to  an  insti- 
tution or  well-defined  organisation ;  and  finally 
grasps  a  moral  or  intellectual  principle.  Some 
analysts  of  Japanese  character  maintain  that  the 
spirit  of  the  bushi  belonged  to  the  first  category ; 

221 


JAPAN 

that  his  loyalty  was  not  a  principle  observed  for 
its  own  sake,  but  only  a  form  of  reverence  or 
affection,  primarily  for  his  father,  and  secondarily 
for  his  feudal  chief,  whom  he  regarded  as  his 
father.  According  to  that  theory  the  Bushi-do 
is  an  outcome  of  the  doctrine  of  filial  piety.  But 
the  river  cannot  rise  higher  than  its  source.  If, 
as  has  been  already  shown,  the  parental  tie  was 
unhesitatingly  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  feudal 
fealty,  it  is  plainly  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  latter  derived  its  inspiration  from  the  former. 
History  proves,  by  example  after  example,  that 
not  the  occupant  of  the  Throne  but  the  Throne 
itself  was  an  object  of  veneration  in  Japan.  It 
proves  also,  and  even  less  scrutiny  is  needed  to  de- 
tect the  fact,  that  not  the  representative  of  a  great 
house  but  the  house  itself  commanded  the  leal 
services  of  the  bushi.  Again  and  again  the  indi- 
vidual was  stripped  of  all  authority  and  reduced 
to  the  position  of  a  mere  figure-head  by  men  who 
were  nevertheless  willing  to  give  their  lives  for 
the  honour  of  the  name  he  bore  and  the  support 
of  the  family  he  represented.  Every  page  of 
Japanese  annals  reveals  the  same  spectacle,  —  the 
institution  preserved,  the  individual  ignored.  And 
looking  a  little  closer,  it  is  found  that  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  noblest  type  of  bushi  fixed  itself 
ultimately  neither  on  the  person  of  the  chief  he 
followed  nor  on  the  preservation  of  the  house  he 
served,  but  upon  his  own  duty  as  a  soldier,  upon 
the  way  of  the  warrior  (Bushi-do).  If  he  subor- 

222 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

dinated  the  individual  to  the  institution,  so  also 
he  surrendered  his  own  life  when  the  institution 
fell,  and  found  in  "  duty  "  (gi)  a  force  that  nerved 
him  to  a  shocking  and  most  painful  mode  of  self- 
immolation.  Civilisation  has  taught  the  Occident 
to  believe  that  the  suicide  is  insane ;  that  moral 
equilibrium  must  have  been  lost  before  a  man's 
hand  can  turn  the  pistol  or  knife  against  his  own 
person.  The  act  seems  so  terrible  that  its  per- 
formance cannot  be  associated  with  sober  reflec- 
tion. Yet  the  severing  of  the  jugular  vein  or  the 
scattering  of  the  brains  brings  instant  release,  and 
is  therefore  much  easier  than  the  samurai's  method 
of  comparatively  slow  self-torture,  while  in  his 
case  there  can  be  no  question  of  insanity.  In  the 
full  possession  of  his  senses,  calmly  and  deliber- 
ately, he  disembowelled  himself,  and  his  com- 
monest motive  was  to  avoid  the  dishonour  of 
surviving  defeat,  to  consummate  his  duty  of 
loyalty,  or  to  give  weight  to  a  remonstrance 
in  the  interests  of  virtue  or  the  cause  of  the 
wronged.  It  would  seem  that  the  beginnings  of 
this  mood  are  to  be  sought  in  the  old  and  barbar- 
ous institution  called  junshi,  or  "  associated  death." 
From  whatever  region  of  Asia  the  primasval 
Japanese  came,  they  brought  with  them  the 
custom  that  a  sovereign  or  prince  should  be  fol- 
lowed to  the  other  world  by  those  who  had 
ministered  to  him  on  this  side  of  the  grave  — 
his  wife,  his  concubine,  his  principal  servitors. 
The  law  which  enforced  this  cruel  obligation 

223 


JAPAN 

was  rescinded  in  the  first  century  A.  D.,  but  the 
principle  survived.  Men  and  even  women  per- 
suaded themselves  that  it  was  necessary  to  render 
beyond  the  grave  the  same  services  they  had  per- 
formed in  life,  and  self-immolation  at  the  demise 
of  a  ruler  or  master  continued  to  be  occasionally 
practised  until  the  Nara  and  Heian  epochs, 
when  the  nation  fell  into  effeminate  and  luxu- 
rious habits  inconsistent  with  any  heroic  displays 
of  altruism.  In  the  mean  while  Confucianism 
and  Buddhism  had  come.  Both  exercised  a 
strong  influence  in  moulding  the  national  char- 
acter. The  former  especially  won  a  high  place 
in  Japanese  esteem  from  the  first,  probably  be- 
cause of  the  reverent  observance  it  received  in 
China,  whence  Japan  borrowed  so  many  models. 
A  society  founded  on  the  "  five  relationships  "  — 
ruler  and  ruled,  husband  and  wife,  father  and 
son,  elder  brother  and  younger  brother,  friend 
and  friend  —  seemed  the  most  perfect  organisa- 
tion within  reach  of  human  beings,  and  ima- 
gination could  not  rise  to  any  loftier  concep- 
tion than  that  of  the  motives  informing  these 
relationships — authority  guided  by  righteousness 
and  benevolence  on  the  part  of  ruler,  husband, 
father,  and  elder  brother ;  submission  guided  by 
righteousness  and  sincerity  on  the  part  of  ruled, 
wife,  son,  and  younger  brother ;  the  mutual  pro- 
motion of  virtue  by  friends.  The  Chinese  sage 
inculcated  the  duty  of  sincerity  or  fidelity,  but  did 
not  indicate  the  manner  of  discharging  it.  There 

224 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

the  Japanese  samurai  derived  a  rule  from  .his 
own  ancient  custom  of  self-sacrifice.  The  moral 
principle  was  Chinese  ;  the  heroic  practice,  Jap- 
anese. Confucius  further  taught  contempt  for 
money,  and  that  part  of  his  teaching,  taken  in 
conjunction  with  Mencius*  doctrine  that  extrava- 
gance is  fatal  to  discipline,  appealed  strongly  to 
the  bushi.  It  was  from  these  two  philosophers, 
also,  that  the  Japanese  learned  to  set  the  institu- 
tion above  the  individual.  What  Confucius  had 
drafted  in  outline,  Mencius  compiled  in  detail ; 
namely,  that  while  the  right  to  rule  is  of  divine 
origin,  the  title  of  the  ruler  depends  on  his  per- 
sonal character  and  his  conduct  of  affairs  ;  and 
that  if  he  fail  to  establish  such  a  title,  he  should 
be  removed  by  a  member  of  his  own  family,  or 
by  one  of  his  chief  officials,  or  by  a  "  minister  of 
heaven."  The  guiding  principles  of  the  bush?s 
practice  are  here  easily  recognised.  The  nobler 
portion  of  those  principles  commanded  little  obe- 
dience amid  the  usurpations  and  extravagances 
of  the  Court  nobility,  but  when  the  foundations 
of  military  feudalism  began  to  be  laid,  the  five 
relationships  and  the  duties  connected  with  them 
acquired  a  new  value  from  the  strength  and 
security  they  conferred  on  the  provincial  organi- 
sations. Then,  again,  the  old  custom  of "  asso- 
ciated death"  was  revived.  Men  sacrificed 
themselves,  sometimes  singly,  sometimes  in  hun- 
dreds, in  order  to  accompany  a  liege  lord  beyond 
the  grave  to  continue  in  the  other  world  the  ser- 

VOL.  n. —  15  225 


JAPAN 

vices  rendered  in  this.  Everywhere  in  Japan  the 
cemeteries  bear  witness  to  that  extraordinary 
spirit  of  devotion:  the  tomb  of  the  chieftain 
stands  surrounded  by  humbler  sepulchres  of  faith- 
ful vassals  who  refused  to  survive  him.  The 
practice  remained  in  vogue  until  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  would  probably  have 
survived  until  the  Meiji  Restoration  had  not  the 
Tokugawa  Viceregents  employed  all  their  in- 
fluence and  authority  to  check  it.  lyeyasu,  and 
after  him  lyetsuna,  issued  proclamations  embody- 
ing the  doctrine  that  the  duty  of  the  samurai 
required  him  not  to  court  death  for  the  sake  of 
ministering  to  a  departed  chief,  but  to  remain  in 
life  for  the  sake  of  serving  his  successor.  "  Sor- 
row for  the  dead,  service  for  the  living," —  that 
was  the  new  creed.1 

Something  more,  however,  than  a  profound 
conception  of  duty  was  needed  to  nerve  the 
bus  hi  for  sacrifices  such  as  he  seems  to  have  been 
always  ready  to  make.  It  is  true  that  parents 
took  pains  to  familiarise  their  children  of  both 
sexes  from  very  tender  years  with  the  idea  of 
self-destruction  at  any  time.  The  little  boy  was 
taught  how  the  sword  should  be  directed  against 
his  bosom ;  the  little  girl  how  the  dagger  must 
be  held  so  as  to  pierce  the  throat ;  both  grew  up 
in  constant  fellowship  with  the  conviction  that 
suicide  must  be  reckoned  among  the  natural 
incidents  of  every-day  existence.  But  superadded 

*  See  Appendix,  note  39. 

226 


THE    WAY    OF    THE    WARRIOR 

to  the  force  of  education  and  the  incentive  of 
tradition  there  was  a  transcendental  influence. 
Buddhism  supplied  it.  The  tenets  of  that  creed 
divide  themselves,  broadly  speaking,  into  two 
doctrines,  salvation  by  faith  and  salvation  by 
works,  and  the  chief  exponent  of  the  latter  prin- 
ciple is  the  Zen  sect,  which  prescribes  "  medita- 
tion "  (zazeri)  as  the  vehicle  of  enlightenment. 
The  student  here  approaches  ground  where  the 
sceptic  will  refuse  to  follow ;  yet  it  is  ground 
that  has  been  trodden  by  countless  feet  through 
numerous  generations,  and  no  rational  man  can 
deny  all  validity  to  the  testimony  of  so  many 
disciples.  At  first,  according  to  the  evidence  of 
devotees,  the  hours  devoted  to  meditation  in  the 
ordained  position  bring  to  the  imagination  only  a 
succession  of  mundane  images.  But  gradually 
this  chain  of  rambling  thoughts  grows  more  and 
more  tenuous,  until  at  last  its  links  cease  to  be 
visible,  the  state  of  "  absorption  "  supervenes,  and 
the  mind  is  flooded  by  an  illumination  which 
reveals  the  universe  in  a  new  aspect,  absolutely 
free  from  all  traces  of  passion,  interest,  or  affec- 
tion, and  shows  written  across  everything  in  flam- 
ing letters  the  truth  that  for  him  who  has  found 
Buddha  there  is  neither  birth  nor  death,  growth 
nor  decay.  Lifted  high  above  his  surroundings, 
he  is  prepared  to  meet  every  fate  with  indiffer- 
ence. Whatever  analysis  psychologists  may  apply 
to  this  mental  condition,  its  attainment  seems  to 
have  been  a  fact  in  the  case  of  the  bushi  of  the 

227 


JAPAN 

Military  epoch  and  to  be  a  fact  in  the  case  of 
the  Japanese  soldier  to-day,  producing  in  the 
former  readiness  to  look  calmly  in  the  face  of 
any  form  of  death,  and  in  the  latter  a  high  type 
of  patriotic  courage. 


228 


Chapter  VI 


REFINEMENTS  AND   PASTIMES    OF 
THE   MILITART  EPOCH 


I 


art  of  landscape  gardening  made 
much  progress  during  the  Military 
epoch.  It  is  a  strange  juxtaposition 
of  terms  —  "  landscape  gardening  "  and 
"  military  epoch,"  —  but  the  reader  will  see,  be- 
fore he  closes  this  chapter  of  the  nation's  history, 
that  contemporaneously  with  the  development  of 
the  swords'  supremacy  there  grew  up  certain  re- 
finements of  life  to  which  the  spirit  of  the  soldier 
might  have  been  expected  to  be  altogether  anti- 
pathetic. The  profuse  application  of  pictorial 
and  glyptic  art  to  purposes  of  interior  decoration 
is  one  of  these  incongruous  features  ;  the  elabora- 
tion of  landscape  gardening  is  a  second,  and  others 
will  be  presently  noted,  the  whole  suggesting  that 
these  tranquil  pastimes  and  gentle  pursuits  were 
necessary  refuges  from  the  perpetual  turbulence 
and  violence  of  the  time,  and  that  in  proportion 
as  men  had  to  occupy  themselves  with  battle  and 
bloodshed,  they  instinctively  turned  to  any  pur- 
suit tending  to  redress  the  moral  balance. 

229 


JAPAN 

Already  in  the  Heian  epoch,  as  shown  in  a 
previous  chapter,  the  designing  of  parks  with 
miniature  lakes,  islands,  and  rockeries,  occupied  a 
prominent  place  in  aristocratic  attention.  Some 
successful  attempts  were  also  made  to  reproduce 
natural  landscapes  and  waterscapes  within  the 
limits  of  a  mansion's  enclosure.  But  the  art 
was  still  in  a  comparatively  conventional  stage, 
not  having  broken  away  from  the  trammels  of 
its  Chinese  origin.  It  was  reserved  for  the  men 
of  the  Military  age  not  merely  to  extend  the 
limits  of  the  art  enormously,  but  also  to  convert 
it  into  something  like  an  exact  science,  codifying 
its  principles  and  imparting  allegorical  signifi- 
cance to  every  part  of  its  practice.  Originally 
the  scheme  of  a  garden  was  worked  out  by  a 
pictorial  artist,  consulting  his  own  instinct  of 
beauty  in  strict  subordination  to  general  rules. 
But,  by  and  by,  the  Buddhist  monks  began  to 
acquire  a  monopoly  of  skill.  That  was  a  natu- 
ral result.  Never  from  the  first  had  a  Buddhist 
temple  been  erected  in  Japan  without  most 
careful  consideration  of  its  surroundings.  Its 
congruity  with  the  environing  landscape,  its  con- 
trasts or  agreements  with  the  features  of  its 
approaches,  the  adaptation  of  its  grounds  to  the 
"points  "  of  their  vicinity,  —  all  these  things  were 
thought  out  with  the  utmost  care,  and  the  de- 
lightful impression  produced  by  Buddhist  edifices 
is  due  as  much  to  this  harmonising  of  art  and 
nature  as  to  any  grace  and  grandeur  of  the  struc- 

230 


REFINEMENTS     AND     PASTIMES 

tures'  proportions  or  any  wealth  of  decoration. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  the 
first  treatise  on  the  subject  appeared  from  the  pen 
of  Yoshitsune  Gokyogoku.  On  the  form  of  park 
hitherto  associated  with  the  "  bed-chamber " 
style  of  architecture  he  grafted  certain  precepts 
laid  down  by  the  Buddhists  for  arranging  rockery 
stones,  and  he  also  indicated,  as  applicable  to  the 
whole,  the  Taoist  doctrine  of  the  active  and  pas- 
sive principles.  As  to  this  latter  canon,  it  was 
nothing  but  a  mysteriously  stated  formula  of 
balance.  Nature  has  made  everything  in  pairs, 
the  dominant  and  the  dominated,  the  male  and 
the  female,  and  in  following  nature's  guidance, 
as  was  above  all  things  essential,  that  universal 
law  had  to  be  carefully  observed.  Gokyogoku's 
work  was  a  kind  of  grammar  of  park  planning. 
By  giving  to  everything  a  definition,  he  invested 
it  with  a  motive,  and  for  expressing  the  various 
motives  general  rules,  many  of  them  purely  con- 
ventional, were  laid  down.  A  lake  had  to  take 
the  outline  of  a  tortoise  or  a  crane.  An  island 
might  be  a  mountain,  a  field,  a  strip  of  seashore, 
a  cloud  in  the  distance,  a  morning  mist,  a  sandy 
beach,  a  floating  pine,  or  the  bank  of  a  stream. 
A  waterfall  was  either  full-face  or  profile,  frag- 
mentary or  complete,  uniform  or  stepped,  corner 
or  side,  single,  double,  or  threaded.  A  stream,  if 
it  ran  from  east  to  south  and  then  west,  was 
regular ;  if  it  flowed  from  west  to  east,  it  was 
inverse.  If  it  did  not  rise  in  a  lake,  a  country 

231 


JAPAN 

path  should  be  associated  with  it  to  suggest  a 
distant  origin,  or  a  mountain  to  suggest  a  spring, 
or  a  rockery  to  suggest  a  concealed  font. 
There  was  also  a  waterfall  landscape  which 
called  for  certain  salient  features.  All  this  was 
greatly  elaborated  by  a  monk  called  Soseki,  who 
worked  many  of  the  moral  precepts  of  the  Zen 
sect  into  the  fabric  of  his  landscape ;  and  ulti- 
mately, in  the  second  half  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, the  artist  priest  Soami  extended  the  system 
so  greatly  and  added  so  many  subtle  conceptions 
that  he  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  father  of  land- 
scape gardening  in  Japan.  Setting  out  by  enu- 
merating and  defining  twelve  principal  varieties 
of  landscape  and  waterscape,  he  proceeded  to 
indicate  the  constituents  of  each  and  their  deri- 
vations. Thus,  in  rockeries  he  placed  sea  and 
river  stones  ;  plain  and  mountain  stones ;  current 
stones  and  wave  stones ,  stones  that  divide  a 
stream,  stones  from  which  it  flows,  and  stones 
against  which  it  breaks ;  stones  for  standing  be- 
side ;  detached  stones ;  erect  stones  and  pros- 
trate stones ;  water-fowl-feather-drying  stones ; 
mandarin-duck  stones  ;  three-Buddha  stones,  and 
sutra  stones.  Then  of  islands  there  was  the 
wind-beaten  or  salt-strewn  isle,  which  had  neither 
moss  nor  rock  because  it  represented  a  spot  swept 
by  constant  sand-showers ;  there  was  a  central 
island,  or  isle  of  elysium,  to  which  no  bridge  led 
since  it  lay  in  mid-ocean ;  there  was  the  wave- 
beaten  island,  the  tide-lapped  island,  the  guest 

232 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

island,  and  the  host  island.  To  Soami  also  was 
due  the  conception  of  the  shore  of  the  "  spread 
sand  "  and  the  shore  of  the  "  piled  sand,"  and 
his  indications  as  to  cascades,  streams,  trees,  and 
shrubs  are  voluminous.  Many  of  the  ideas  that 
a  landscape  was  supposed  to  convey  were  purely 
subjective.  Thus,  in  the  park  of  the  Silver 
Pavilion  of  Yoshimasa,  which  was  laid  out  by 
Soami,  there  were  scenes  and  features  called  the 
landscape  of  the  "  law  of  the  waters,"  the  land- 
scape of  the  "  sound  of  the  stream,"  the  land- 
scape of  the  "  essence  of  incense,"  the  landscape 
of  the  "  gate  of  the  dragon,"  the  "  bridge  of 
the  mountain  genii,"  the  "  vale  of  the  golden 
sands,"  the  "  hill  that  faces  the  moon,"  and  so 
on,  several  of  which  names  have  reference  to 
Buddhist  doctrines,  and  owe  their  appropriateness 
to  an  arbitrary  association  of  ideas.  Indeed,  if  it 
were  necessary  to  indicate  the  chief  difference 
between  the  parks  of  Japan  and  the  parks  of 
Europe,  perhaps  the  truest  formula  would  be 
that  whereas  the  latter  are  planned  solely  with 
reference  to  a  geometrical  scheme  of  comeliness, 
or  in  pure  and  faithful  obedience  to  nature's  in- 
dications, the  former  are  intended  to  appeal  to 
some  particular  mood  or  to  evoke  some  special 
emotion,  while,  at  the  same  time,  preserving  a 
likeness  to  the  landscapes  and  seascapes  of  the 
world  about  us.  The  two  systems  might  also  be 
described  as  the  prose  and  the  poetry  of  garden- 
making,  respectively.  The  Japanese  pays  more 


JAPAN 

attention  to  the  spirit,  the  European  to  the  form. 
Efforts  to  compose  poetry  in  such  a  medium 
sometimes  betrayed  the  composer  into  appar- 
ent extravagances  and  arbitrary  analogies.  Not 
always  able  to  resolve  into  an  exact  alphabet  the 
subtle  language  in  which  nature  couches  her 
suggestions,  he  manufactured  an  alphabet  of  his 
own,  and  ascribed  to  each  letter  a  value  which  it 
possessed  only  in  this  artificial  vocabulary.  If 
history,  tradition,  or  fiction  has  invested  a  certain 
scene  with  indelible  memories  of  a  glorious  pa- 
geant, a  pathetic  tragedy,  or  a  delightful  incident, 
it  is  easy  to  foretell  that  a  transcript  of  that  scene 
will  move  the  beholder  to  a  triumphant,  a  sor- 
rowful, or  a  joyous  mood.  But  if  without  the 
aid  of  such  well-emphasised  association  it  is 
sought  to  secure  special  interpretations  for  par- 
ticular scenes,  then  the  artist  must  either  invent 
a  code  to  guide  the  interpreter,  or  leave  the  re- 
sults of  his  art  largely  to  chance.  It  was  thus 
that  there  grew  up  about  landscape  gardening  in 
Japan  a  species  of  written  religion,  often  embody- 
ing beautiful  and  purely  aesthetic  principles,  but 
frequently  making  incursions  into  the  regions  of 
myth,  superstition,  and  petty  conventionalism.  It 
may  justly  be  called  a  "  religion,"  because,  while 
it  appeals,  on  the  one  hand,  to  some  of  human 
nature's  highest  moods,  it  prescribes,  on  the 
other,  sanctions  and  vetoes  which  derive  their 
force  solely  from  supernaturalism.  When  from 
the  contemplation  of  some  exquisite  landscape 

234 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

copied  for  his  pleasure  by  years  of  costly  toil,  the 
rich  aristocrat  passes  to  the  presence  of  a  lowly 
peasant's  cot  and  its  rustic  surroundings,  repro- 
duced with  strict  fidelity  in  some  corner  of  his 
spacious  park,  he  can  scarcely  fail  to  draw  from 
the  contrast  its  proper  lesson  of  charity  and  toler- 
ance ;  or  when  the  beauties  of  a  fair  landscape 
are  invoked  to  lend  attractions  to  some  high 
moral  ideal ;  or  even  when,  as  an  able  writer  puts 
it,1  "  obedience  to  laws  of  balance,  contrast  and 
continuity  in  line,  form,  mass,  and  colour,  applied 
to  the  component  parts  of  gardens,  is  enforced 
through  the  medium  of  precepts  found  in  obso- 
lete philosophies,"  the  better  aspects  of  the  cult  are 
seen.  But  when  it  has  recourse  to  the  doctrines 
of  the  Book  of  Changes  or  the  terrors  of  demonol- 
ogy  to  obtain  compliance  with  its  canons,  it  assumes 
the  character  of  a  degraded  religion.  There  is, 
however,  very  little  room  to  fin<J  fault  with  the 
garden-making  cult  of  Japan.  Its  results  are 
invariably  beautiful  and  aesthetically  correct  by 
whatever  processes  they  are  reached,  and  though 
the  interest  of  the  story  they  tell  is  much  en- 
hanced by  intelligent  study  of  the  language  in 
which  it  is  written,  their  charms  are  palpable  to 
the  most  superficial  observer.  Nature's  master- 
pieces are  reproduced  and  her  principles  applied 
with  loving  fidelity.  From  the  gracefully  spread- 
ing margins  of  lakes,  or  out  of  valleys  between 
harmoniously  contoured  hills,  rise  rockeries, 

1  See  Appendix,  note  40. 


JAPAN 

sometimes  of  colossal  dimensions,  providing  paths 
for  cascades  or  imparting  mystery  to  the  shad- 
ows of  overhanging  trees ;  and  from  grassy  par- 
terres massive  boulders  thrust  strangely  streaked 
or  curiously  shaped  shoulders,  adding  notes  of 
colour  and  suggestions  of  rude  grandeur  to  the 
landscape.  These  rocks  are  free  from  offensive 
traces  of  artificiality.  They  are  so  skilfully  dis- 
posed that  they  seem  to  have  grown  old  in  their 
places,  and  while  their  massive  and  reposeful 
effects  are  carefully  preserved,  all  harshness  of 
outline  is  relieved  by  nestling  mosses  or  billowy 
shrubs  and  bushes.  There  is  scarcely  any  limit  to 
the  sums  expended  on  laying  out  these  pleasure- 
grounds  and  on  their  up-keep.  Huge  rocks 
are  transported  from  great  distances, —  rocks 
honeycombed  by  the  beating  of  ocean  waves ; 
rocks  smelted  into  quaint  forms  by  the  furnaces 
of  volcanoes ;  rocks  hollowed  and  gnarled  by 
the  teeth  of  torrents ;  petrifactions  from  the 
depths  of  inland  seas,  and  richly  tinted  masses 
from  mineral  districts, —  all  these  are  sought  for 
and  treasured  as  a  dilettante  in  Europe  or 
America  prizes  the  contents  of  his  picture 
gallery.  To  produce  in  miniature  celebrated 
landscapes  or  waterscapes,  years  are  devoted  to 
searching  for  counterparts  of  their  components, 
or  to  training  trees  and  shrubs  in  facsimile  of 
the  originals  planted  there  by  nature.  In  one  of 
the  celebrated  parks  of  Tokyo  —  a  gem  which, 
rough-hewed  by  old-time  experts  with  resources 

236 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

as  unlimited  as  their  skill,  and  polished  by  four 
cycles  of  changing  seasons,  was  destroyed  in  as 
many  months  during  the  iconoclastic  era  that 
followed  the  Restoration  of  1867  —  the  thirty- 
six  views  seen  by  travellers  on  the  "  Eastern  Sea 
Road  "  between  Tokyo  and  Kyoto,  were  copied 
so  faithfully  that  to  make  the  circuit  of  the  park 
was  to  travel  from  one  capital  to  the  other.  In 
many  parks  the  "  Eight  Views  of  Omi  Lake"  are 
depicted.  Sometimes  models  are  borrowed  from 
a  poet's  conception  of  supernatural  beauties,  as 
the  isles  of  Elysium  or  the  mountains  of  paradise. 
Sometimes  dells  or  nooks  of  special  beauty  are 
consecrated  to  the  memory  of  great  philosophers 
or  sanctified  by  shrines  to  tutelary  deities.  And 
every  component  of  the  scene  —  rock,  shrub- 
bery, hill,  or  valley,  even  each  fence  or  lantern  — 
has  its  distinguishing  appellation  and  approved 
shape. 

This  extraordinary  elaboration  to  which  the 
art  has  been  carried  deserves  consideration.  It 
has  already  been  said  that  landscape  gardening 
is  reduced  almost  to  an  exact  science  in  Japan, 
and  that  though  nature  is  supposed  to  be  the 
teacher,  the  symbols  she  uses  to  convey  her 
instruction,  being  interpreted  by  human  intel- 
ligence, frequently  assume  arbitrary  and  conven- 
tional forms.  From  that  point  of  view  they 
may  be  compared  to  the  mannerisms  which, 
while  they  are  not  without  a  value  of  their  own, 
often  mar  the  purity  of  an  accomplished  author's 

237 


JAPAN 

style.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  the  Japanese 
designer  of  a  landscape  garden,  like  the  Japanese 
painter  of  a  picture,  never  admits  the  possibility 
of  obtaining  photographic  realism,  which  the 
Western  artist,  on  the  contrary,  constantly  strives 
to  reach.  The  principle  followed  by  the  Japan- 
ese is  that  certain  features  only  can  be  represented 
with  the  means  and  appurtenances  at  command 
of  human  skill,  and  that  it  is  the  artist's  duty  to 
select  those  features  justly  and  to  express  them 
intelligibly.  By  long  and  careful  observation  he 
has  discovered,  or  thinks  that  he  has  discovered, 
what  may  be  called  the  aesthetic  instincts  of  na- 
ture's operations,  as  displayed  in  the  growth  of 
trees,  or  the  contours  and  grouping  of  hills,  or 
the  modelling  and  association  of  rocks,  or  the  flow 
and  spread  of  water  ;  and  he  undertakes  not  only 
to  depict  those  instincts  by  object  lessons  but  also 
to  formulate  them  in  a  grammar.  Two  results 
are  noticeable :  first,  that  his  emphasis  of  special 
features  is  sometimes  exaggerated  to  the  verge  of 
grotesqueness ;  secondly,  that  by  the  elaborate- 
ness of  his  terminology  and  the  minuteness  of  his 
codes  he  seems  to  have  lost  himself  in  profusion 
while  straining  after  selection.  Thus,  though 
the  landscape  gardener  in  Europe  attaches  little 
importance  to  rocks  except  as  materials  for  build- 
ing a  grotto  or  constructing  a  bed  for  ferns  or 
mosses,  the  Japanese  gardener  considers  the  shape 
and  size  of  every  rock  and  boulder  with  reference 
to  the  scale  of  his  plan  and  the  nature  of  the 

238 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

trees  and  shrubs  he  has  to  use,  and  recognises  "  one 
hundred  and  thirty-eight  principal  stones  and 
rocks  having  special  names  and  functions,  in  addi- 
tion to  others  of  secondary  importance/' *  There 
are  some  fifty  stones  that  bear  the  names  of  Bud- 
dhist saints,  and  have  their  appropriate  positions 
and  inter-relations  in  monastery  gardens ;  there 
are  five  radical  rock-shapes,  which  may  be  com- 
bined, two,  three,  four,  or  even  five  at  a  time ; 
and  there  are  broad  divisions  of  hill  stones,  lake 
and  river  stones,  cascade  stones,  island  stones, 
valley  stones,  tea-garden  stones,  stepping-stones 
and  water-basin  stones,  with  their  ninety-one 
subdivisions  and  their  various  orthodox  group- 
ings. In  stone  lanterns  twenty-three  specially 
designated  shapes  are  found,  and  in  water-basins 
thirteen,  while  for  each  form  of  lantern  or  basin 
there  is  an  appropriate  accompaniment  of  rocks, 
stones,  shrubs,  and  trees.  Fences,  gates,  and 
bridges,  again,  constitute  a  special  branch  of  the 
art.  Hundreds  of  varieties  have  been  designed 
and  have  received  the  approval  of  great  masters, 
and  the  skilled  landscape-gardener  knows  which 
of  these  will  best  consort  with  a  given  environ- 
ment, and  how  to  make  a  delightful  picture 
of  grace,  rusticity,  cosiness,  and  warmth  out 
of  materials  which  from  the  hands  of  a  tyro 
would  emerge  commonplace  and  uninteresting. 
Even  wells  have  their  gradus,  and  many  volumes 
have  been  devoted  to  the  discussion  and  delinea- 

1  See  Appendix,  note  41. 

239 


JAPAN 

tion  of  bridges,  arbours,  lakes,  rivers,  cascades, 
and  islands.  It  need  scarcely  be  said  that  trees, 
shrubs,  bushes,  plants,  and  flowers  are  an  exten- 
sive study.  Here  the  Japanese  have  exercised 
their  fidelity  of  observation  with  results  that  can- 
not be  too  much  admired.  They  have  learned 
to  train  each  variety  of  tree  and  trim  each  kind 
of  bush  so  that  the  most  beautiful  features  of  its 
natural  growth  shall  be  emphasised  without  being 
distorted ;  or,  to  use  the  language  of  Mr.  J. 
Conder,  that  sympathetic  and  accurate  student 
of  Japanese  aesthetics,  they  have  developed  "  con- 
spicuous ability  in  seizing  upon  the  fundamental 
and  characteristic  qualities  of  natural  forms,  and 
creating  a  sort  of  shorthand,  or  contracted  repre- 
sentation, for  decorative  purposes."  It  is  true 
that  this  art  sometimes  degenerates  into  license. 
The  forms  that  a  tree  or  a  shrub  may  be  forced  to 
assume  are  taken  as  models  rather  than  the  forms 
that  its  unrestrained  growth  suggests.  But  such 
abuses  are  the  exception.  As  a  rule  the  gardener 
only  interprets  and  gives  prominence  to  nature's 
intentions,  fixing  the  beauties  that  vegetation 
would  develop  were  the  process  of  selection  gov- 
erned by  artistic  factors  only,  instead  of  being 
disturbed  by  unfavourable  conditions  of  soil  or 
surroundings.  Trees  and  shrubs  that  have  been 
thus  trained  and  tended  by  him  from  generation 
to  generation  are  objects  of  delightful  comeliness, 
and,  when  examined  closely,  are  found  not  only 
to  have  been  kept  in  constant  harmony  with  the 

240 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

finest  types  of  their  kind,  but  also  to  have  been 
restrained  from  developing  dimensions  incongru- 
ous with  their  surroundings.  For  the  Japanese 
gardener  is  not  more  particular  about  the  shapes 
and  grouping  of  his  materials  than  about  the  gen- 
eral scale  of  the  scene  they  produce,  the  aspects 
from  which  they  have  to  be  viewed,  and  the  nature 
of  their  surroundings.  It  would  be  shocking  if 
the  trees  and  shrubs  in  a  garden  of  limited  area 
had  the  dimensions  they  attain  in  a  primeval 
forest  or  on  a  trackless  moor,  and  it  would  be 
crude  and  unsatisfactory  if  their  size  could  be 
regulated  only  by  the  stages  of  their  natural 
growth.  Hence  one  of  the  gardener's  im- 
portant functions  is  to  limit  the  stature  of  trees 
and,  at  the  same  time,  to  make  them  assume  all 
the  features  of  maturity  and  unrestrained  vigour ; 
a  task  demanding  large  endowment  of  the  sense  of 
proportion  and  comparison  and  its  high  training. 
To  this  part  of  the  subject  belongs  the  art  of 
miniature  landscape-gardening,  which  also  re- 
ceived great  development  in  the  Military  epoch. 
The  principles  and  rules  of  practice  mentioned 
above  apply  to  this  art  with  undiminished  force, 
but  the  scale  of  construction  is  reduced  so  that  a 
landscape  or  waterscape,  accurate  in  all  details 
and  having  all  its  parts  perfectly  balanced,  is 
produced  within  an  area  of  two  or  three  square 
feet.  China  gave  this  conception  to  Japan.  A 
Chinese  poet,  constantly  quoted  by  the  devotees 
of  the  art,  says  that  "  it  induces  serenity  of  tem- 

VOL.  ii. —  1 6  241 


JAPAN 

per ;  fills  the  heart  with  love ;  makes  a  cheerful 
countenance ;  dispels  drowsiness ;  banishes  evil 
passions  ;  teaches  the  changes  of  plants  and  trees ; 
brings  distant  landscapes  close ;  gives  journeyless 
access  to  mountain-caves,  sea-beaten  shores,  and 
cool  grottos,  and  shows  the  procession  of  ages 
without  decay."  But  it  must  be  confessed  that 
these  miniature  landscapes  have  a  toy  character 
which  interferes  with  appreciation  of  their  beau- 
ties. One  can  easily  recognise  the  consummate 
skill  displayed  in  bringing  all  their  parts  into 
exact  proportion  with  the  scale  of  the  design. 
But  there  is  always  a  suggestion  of  triviality 
which  mars  the  effect.  None  the  less  they  have 
the  undoubted  merit  of  lightening  the  life  of  the 
student  or  the  humble  tradesman,  since  they  give 
him  the  constant  companionship  of  a  fair  garden 
such  as  would  otherwise  be  beyond  his  reach. 
They  are  usually  arranged  in  trays  of  pottery, 
porcelain,  or  bronze,  each  tiny  tree  and  bush 
carefully  trained,  and  each  pebble  showing  the 
features  of  the  rock  it  is  intended  to  represent. 

Associated  with  miniature  gardening  is  the  art 
of  growing  trees  in  pots,  which  also  may  be  said 
to  have  attained  the  rank  of  a  national  pastime 
from  the  Muromachi  era ;  or,  speaking  more 
accurately,  from  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. It  is  not  suggested  that  the  practice  of 
dwarfing  trees  and  shrubs  by  confining  their 
roots  in  pots  had  not  been  inaugurated  long  be- 
fore the  days  when  the  Ashikaga  dilettante  carried 

242 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

the  aesthetic  cult  to  extravagant  lengths  in  Kyoto. 
But  it  had  not  attracted  special  attention  prior  to 
that  time,  nor  given  any  indications  of  the  extra- 
ordinary proportions  it  was  destined  ultimately  to 
attain.  Something  of  the  impulse  it  then  received 
must  be  attributed  to  the  contemporaneous  de- 
velopment of  keramic  skill  which  marked  the 
epoch.  The  pot  itself  began  to  rank  as  an  object 
of  art,  and  to  take  shapes,  sizes,  and  colours  which, 
by  suggesting  new  possibilities  of  harmony  be- 
tween the  receptacle  and  its  contents,  encouraged 
new  conceptions  on  the  part  of  the  tree-trainer. 
Thenceforth  the  bonsai  (potted  shrub)  became  a 
specialty  of  the  Japanese  gardener,  and  the  wor- 
ship of  the  cult  is  perhaps  more  fervent  among 
the  upper  classes  to-day  than  it  ever  was.  There 
is  only  one  canon  of  practice,  and  only  one  test  of 
perfection :  the  tree  or  shrub,  though  but  five  or 
six  inches  in  height,  must  be,  in  everything  save 
dimensions,  an  absolute  facsimile  of  what  it  would 
have  been  had  it  grown  for  cycles  unrestrained  in 
the  forest :  must  have  the  same  spread  of  bough 
in  proportion  to  girth  of  trunk ;  the  same  girth 
of  trunk  in  proportion  to  height ;  the  same  set  of 
branch,  gnarling  of  stem,  and  even  symptoms 
of  decrepitude.  To  be  able  to  place  upon  the 
alcove-shelf  one  of  the  monsters  of  the  forest  in 
miniature,  and  to  receive  from  it  unerring  sugges- 
tions of  the  broad  moor,  the  mossy  glade,  the 
play  of  shadow  and  sunlight,  the  voice  of  the 
distant  waterfall,  and  the  sound  of  the  wind  in 

243 


JAPAN 

the  tree-tops,  —  that  is  the  ideal  of  the  disciple 
of  the  cult.  Each  pigmy  tree  must  tell  faithful 
stories  of  the  landscape  among  which  its  giant 
representative  lives  and  dies.  It  would  seem  at 
first  sight  that  this  canon  can  never  be  applied  to 
the  foliage ;  that  there  the  art  is  foiled ;  for 
though  the  trunk  may  be  dwarfed  and  the  branch 
stunted,  the  leaf  must  always  attain  its  natural 
size.  Such  is  not  the  case.  By  accurately  regu- 
lating the  tree's  diet  of  water,  its  foliage,  too, 
may  be  reduced  to  dimensions  exactly  propor- 
tionate to  its  stature,  and  thus  the  delusion  be- 
comes complete  in  every  detail.  There  may  be 
differences  of  opinion  as  to  whether  the  decades 
and  cycles  of  unremitting  labour  and  attention 
required  to  bring  nature's  processes  into  such  pre- 
cise control  are  justified  by  results,  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  to  sacrifice  the  art  on  the  altar 
of  economy  would  be  to  rule  a  delightful  element 
out  of  the  life  of  the  nation.  Many  a  Japanese 
statesman  or  man  of  affairs,  when  he  finds  him- 
self in  the  presence  of  his  treasured  collection  of 
bonsai,  can  pass  from  the  troubled  realm  of  politi- 
cal squabbles  and  business  cares  to  the  imaginary 
contemplation  of  quiet  rustic  scenes  and  tranquil 
landscapes,  and  can  refresh  his  tired  brain  by 
realistic  visions  of  nature's  peaceful  solitudes. 

It  may  well  be  supposed  that  the  art  of  inter- 
preting and  emphasising  the  aesthetics  of  vegeta- 
tion finds  its  extreme  development  in  the  training 
of  the  bonsai,  and  that  the  attempt  to  give  full 

244 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

expression  within  such  narrow  limits  often  tends 
to  exaggeration  or  even  grotesqueness.  Thus,  on 
first  acquaintance  with  the  products  of  the  art, 
one  is  disposed  to  denounce  some  of  them  as 
monstrosities.  But  it  may  safely  be  asserted  that 
the  fault  is  generally  subjective.  In  every  branch 
of  Japanese  aesthetics  a  multitude  of  conven- 
tions, evolved  from  infinitely  painstaking  study 
of  nature's  methods,  and  stamped  with  the  cachet 
of  great  masters  in  bygone  times,  have  passed  into 
a  revelation  from  which  no  one  ventures  to  take 
away  an  alpha  or  an  omega.  Intelligent  sym- 
pathy with  the  spirit  that  dictated  these  conven- 
tions cannot  survive  slavish  obedience  to  their 
laws,  and  it  may  not  be  denied  that  some  of  these 
dwarfed  trees  and  shrubs  show  the  mechanics  of 
the  art  without  its  genius.  But  when  that  seems 
to  be  the  case  with  a  specimen  which  has  ob- 
tained the  sanction  of  two  or  three  generations 
of  connoisseurs,  its  faithfulness  to  some  freak  of 
nature  can  be  taken  for  granted,  since  although 
hyperbole  of  type  or  abuse  of  convention  may  be 
temporarily  permitted,  such  solecisms  cannot  pass 
current  for  any  length  of  time  among  people  like 
the  Japanese.  A  stranger  must  be  careful,  there- 
fore, before  he  condemns  as  unnatural  in  Japan 
everything  which  offends  his  own  sense  of 
nature's  methods.  Eloquence  of  orthodox  form 
is  probably  there  if  his  faculties  were  trained  to 
recognise  it. 

The  object  of  this  book  being  to  trace  the 


JAPAN 

growth  of  Japan's  civilisation  through  the  his- 
torical stages  of  her  existence,  it  should  be  noted 
that,  in  strict  accuracy,  the  above  developments 
of  landscape  gardening  and  its  correlated  arts  do 
not  belong  entirely  to  the  Military  epoch.  But 
the  additions  that  were  made  to  these  refinements 
under  the  Tokugawa  epoch,  which  succeeded  the 
Military,  are  not  sufficient  to  require  special  dis- 
cussion. Virtually  all  the  principles  destined  to 
guide  subsequent  devotees  of  the  art  were  con- 
ceived and  coded  in  the  closing  days  of  the 
Ashikaga  Shogunate,  and  though  landscape  gar- 
dening in  Yedo  during  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  reached  a  scale  of  grandeur 
and  elaboration  such  as  had  never  previously  been 
witnessed,  these  splendid  results  were  not  new 
departures,  but  only  extended  applications  of  the 
science. 

The  characteristic,  though  not  by  any  means 
the  unique,  type  of  garden  affected  during  the 
Military  epoch  was  dictated  by  the  canons  of  the 
Cha-no-yu  cult.  Cha-no-yu  literally  signifies  "  hot 
water  for  tea,"  a  title  which  assumes  almost 
offensive  simplicity  when  contrasted  with  the 
extraordinary  complexity  and  subtlety  of  the 
practices  it  designates.  The  Cha-no-yu  garden 
bears  to  the  great  park  of  princely  palace  or 
nobleman's  mansion  much  the  same  relation  as 
an  impressionist  sketch  bears  to  a  highly  finished 
representative  picture.  The  chambers  where  the 
Tea  Ceremonial  is  carried  on  are  specially  con- 

246 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

structed  in  strict  accord  with  rules  inspired  by 
principles  of  severe  simplicity  and  rustic  chaste- 
ness.  Their  proportions  are  of  the  smallest ; 
their  framework  of  the  frailest,  and  their  furni- 
ture of  the  scantiest.  It  is  necessary  that  the 
gardens  surrounding  them  should  be  of  a  similar 
character.  For  in  laying  out  a  Japanese  garden 
no  principle  is  more  carefully  observed  than  that 
»  there  should  be  thorough  congruity  between 
the  scenic  scheme  and  the  nature  of  the  edifice 
from  which  it  is  contemplated.  So  studious,  in- 
deed, is  the  designer's  attention  to  this  canon  that 
he  will  even  vary  the  nature  of  a  garden's  parts 
so  as  to  suit  the  different  sections  of  the  edifice  it 
surrounds ;  a  fact  which  becomes  more  intelli- 
gible when  we  remember  that  a  Japanese  house 
is  often  divided  into  several  virtually  independent 
blocks  connected  by  covered  passages,  and  that 
each  block  has  its  own  individuality.  The  Cha- 
no-yu  garden,  then,  having  for  its  basis  an  edifice 
which  is  little  more  than  a  suggestion  of  a  dwell- 
ing, and  being  intended  for  the  contemplation  of 
men  who  live  in  a  world  of  impressions  and 
abstractions  rather  than  of  realities  and  facts,  is 
itself  a  mere  sketch,  suggesting  landscapes,  not 
portraying  them.  The  semblance  of  a  mountain 
moor  is  conveyed  by  some  of  the  shrubs  and 
grasses  that  grow  on  its  expanse ;  a  lake  is  im- 
plied by  a  few  of  its  marginal  rocks  and  over- 
arching trees ;  special  rivers  are  shown  by  the 
flowers  for  whose  bloom  their  banks  are  cele- 

247 


JAPAN 

bratcd,  and  a  sea-beach  is  sketched  by  a  mound 
of  sand  and  a  stunted  pine.  There  is  also  a 
favourite  style  of  Cha-no-yu  garden  which  may 
be  called  a  studied  wilderness.  Trees  and  shrubs 
are  encouraged  to  grow  in  rustic  confusion,  so 
that,  viewed  from  the  veranda  of  the  pavilion, 
nature  is  seen  in  her  fresh  and  least  artificial 
mood.  Of  course  these  austere  canons  are  fre- 
quently departed  from.  Sometimes  the  designer 
of  a  Cha-no-yu  garden  follows  the  principle  that 
if  only  he  works  in  miniature,  he  may  fill  in  all 
the  details  of  the  picture  and  make  it  perfectly 
representative.  Exquisite  gems  of  gardens  on  a 
tiny  scale  have  thus  been  produced,  but  it  need 
scarcely  be  said  that  the  solecism  is  never  per- 
petrated of  associating  these  finished  efforts  of  art 
with  the  essentially  inornate  style  of  Cha-no-yu 
edifice.  Some  pavilions  intended  for  the  practice 
of  the  tea  ceremonial,  though  of  dimensions 
restricted  in  careful  obedience  to  rule,  are  con- 
structed with  materials  of  the  rarest  and  costliest 
nature,  and  it  would  be  absurd  to  lay  out  the 
grounds  of  such  edifices  in  the  sketchy,  rude  style 
of  the  classic  system. 

The  Tea  Ceremonial  is  a  conspicuous  example 
of  the  radical  modification  that  many  customs, 
derived  from  abroad,  underwent  in  Japanese 
hands.  Its  embryo  came  from  China,  but  its 
full-grown  conventions  as  practised  by  the  Jap- 
anese would  not  be  recognised  in  the  land  of 
their  origin.  Great  interest  attaches  to  it,  not 

248 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

only  because  its  popularity  dates  from  the  Mili- 
tary epoch,  when  a  pastime  so  essentially  effemi- 
nate ought  to  have  been  quite  incongruous  with 
the  spirit  of  the  time,  but  also  because  it  consti- 
tutes a  mirror  in  which  the  extraordinary  elabo- 
rateness of  Japanese  social  etiquette  may  be  seen 
vividly  reflected. 

A  coarse  variety  of  the  tea-plant  appears  to 
have  existed  in  Japan  from  time  immemorial, 
but  its  properties  did  not  receive  popular  recog- 
nition until  the  twelfth  century,  when  Eisai,  a 
priest  of  the  Zen  sect  of  Buddhism,  travelling  to 
China  for  the  purpose  of  studying  the  methods 
of  propagandism  which  had  brought  the  doc- 
trine of  religious  meditation  into  wide  favour 
there,  learned  immediately  the  value  attached  to 
the  leaf  and  was  informed  of  the  nine  virtues  it 
possessed.  He  carried  back  with  him  to  Japan  a 
book  of  directions  for  the  culture  and  curing  of 
tea,  together  with  a  jar  of  choice  seed,  and  from 
that  time  the  beverage  came  into  favour  among 
the  upper  classes.  During  more  than  a  hundred 
years,  however,  the  fine  leaf  was  so  rare  and  so 
highly  prized  that  a  small  quantity  of  it,  enclosed 
in  a  little  jar  of  pottery,  used  to  be  given  to  war- 
riors as  a  reward  for  deeds  of  special  prowess, 
and  the  fortunate  recipients  assembled  their  rela- 
tives and  friends  to  partake  of  the  precious  gift. 
The  ceremony  observed  on  these  occasions  might 
be  described  as  tea-tasting  rather  than  tea-drink- 
ing. Several  plantations  of  tea  had  been  formed 

249 


JAPAN 

in  different  provinces,  and  the  leaf  produced  at 
each  was  supposed  to  vary  in  quality,  incompar- 
ably the  best  being  that  grown  at  Tagano-o, 
where  the  seed  brought  by  Eisai  from  China 
had  been  sowed.  Upon  these  differences  the 
social  function  was  based,  the  conception  having 
been  borrowed  from  an  older  form  of  refined 
amusement,  namely,  discriminating  between  the 
perfumes  of  various  incenses.  The  "  teacup 
test "  was  that  most  commonly  applied.  Three 
varieties  of  tea  having  been  divided  into  four 
parts  each,  one  cup  made  from  each  group 
was  tasted  with  the  object  of  furnishing  three 
standards.  Then  to  the  nine  remaining  parts  a 
tenth  was  added,  this  last  receiving  the  name  of 
"  guest, "  inasmuch  as,  though  tasted  with  the 
rest,  it  had  to  be  spared  the  rudeness  of  classifi- 
cation. It  will  be  observed  that  there  were  now 
ten  parts.  Cups  brewed  from  them  were  next 
handed  to  the  convives,  who  displayed  the  deli- 
cacy of  their  palates  by  determining  with  which 
of  the  three  standards  each  cup  should  be  classed. 
In  the  eyes  of  a  Japanese  samurai  the  triviality 
of  this  pastime  was  relieved  by  two  facts :  first, 
that  it  came  from  China,  whence  all  ethical 
pleasures  were  derived  ;  secondly,  that  it  had  the 
sanction  of  the  Zen  sect  of  Buddhists,  whose 
tenets  were  regarded  as  the  essence  of  a  warrior's 
creed.  The  first  evidence  of  slavish  obedience 
to  precedent,  which  is  certainly  one  of  the  ten- 
dencies educated  by  the  cult,  was  furnished  in 

250 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

the  fourteenth  century,  when  the  nine  horizon- 
tal rings  of  shakudo^ — a  metal  composed  of 
copper,  silver,  and  a  small  quantity  of  gold, — 
enriching  the  finial  of  the  Ten-no-ji  pagoda,  were 
taken  down  and  used  for  casting  tea-urns,  by 
order  of  a  military  chief.  Thenceforth  a  pa- 
goda ring  became  the  orthodox  material  for  a 
tea-urn,  and  it  is  said  that  among  more  than  a 
hundred  pagodas  in  the  provinces  of  Izumi  and 
Kawachi,  not  one  escaped  having  its  rings 
stripped  off.  The  pastime  of  tea-tasting  was 
now  so  popular  that  every  street  in  the  two 
capitals  —  Kyoto  and  Kamakura  —  had  a  shop 
for  the  sale  of  tea-utensils,  and  the  store-keeper 
sat  among  his  wares  calling  out,  "  Won't  you 
condescend  to  want  a  cup  of  tea  ? " 

But  the  Cha-no-yu  had  not  yet  developed  its 
distinctive  features,  or  acquired  anything  of  the 
immense  influence  it  afterwards  exercised  socially 
and  aesthetically.  Yoshimasa,  the  eighth  of  the 
Ashikaga  Shoguns,  was  the  patron  of  the  new  de- 
parture. He  did  not  himself  originate  anything, 
but  being  a  ruler  whose  unlimited  lavishness  of 
expenditure  on  objects  of  beauty  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  entire  nation,  and  produced  a 
wave  of  aestheticism  that  swept  through  the 
whole  country,  his  devotion  to  the  Cha-no-yu 
brought  it  at  once  into  prominence.  The  de- 
viser of  the  extraordinarily  detailed  system  of  eti- 
quette and  labyrinth  of  observances  that  now 
became  associated  with  tea-drinking,  and  the 

251 


JAPAN 

author  of  the  philosophy  that  grew  up  about 
it,  was  Shuko,  a  prelate  of  the  Zen  sect  of  Bud- 
dhism. Shuko  being  an  ardent  believer  in  the 
rite  of  religious  meditation  which  his  creed  pre- 
scribed, his  affection  for  tea,  prepared  according 
to  the  new  method,  seems  to  have  been  pri- 
marily derived  from  its  property  of  promoting 
wakefulness,  and  thus  assisting  him  to  practise 
the  rite  through  long  intervals.  Gradually  this 
adjunct  of  his  reverent  exercises  became  asso- 
ciated in  his  mind  with  the  moral  conditions 
they  produced.  He  conceived  that  a  great  in- 
fluence for  good  might  be  exerted  by  employing 
the  Cha-no-yu  as  a  vehicle  for  the  direct  promo- 
tion of  a  system  resembling  that  of  religious 
meditation  and  introspection,  and  for  the  indirect 
inculcation  of  the  virtues  attributed  by  the  Zen 
creed  to  such  exercises.  It  was  thus  that  he 
elaborated  for  the  practice  of  tea-drinking  a  cere- 
monial of  the  most  minute  and  formal  descrip- 
tion. From  an  Occidental  point  of  view  perhaps 
the  most  intelligible  explanation  that  can  be 
given  of  Shuko's  cult  is  to  call  it  the  Free  Ma- 
sonry of  Japan.  Free  Masonry  has  for  its  sole 
object  the  inculcation  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
comprehensive  of  all  virtues,  but  its  rituals,  its 
rites,  its  ceremonials,  its  mysteries,  its  parapher- 
nalia, and  its  costumes  hide  from  the  outside  pub- 
lic the  true  spirit  of  its  aims.  The  Cha-no-yu 
has  fared  similarly.  Its  esoteric  philosophy  has 
been  obscured  by  its  exoteric  observances.  The 

252 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

inventors  of  both  cults  showed  profound  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature,  for  they  saw  that  in  order 
to  popularise  a  system  of  high  morality  it  must 
be  associated  with  ceremonies  that  appeal  to  a 
comparatively  low  range  of  feelings.  Four  car- 
dinal virtues  constituted  the  basis  of  Shuko's  sys- 
tem :  they  were  urbanity,  courtesy,  purity,  and 
imperturbability  (ka-kei-sei-jakii),  this  last  includ- 
ing repose  of  manner,  a  prime  essential  of  polite 
intercourse. 

Before  considering  the  exoteric  side  of  the 
cult,  a  word  must  be  said  about  its  history.  If 
to  Shuko  belongs  the  credit  of  conceiving  the 
system,  the  Ashikaga  Shogun  Yoshimasa  was  the 
means  of  bringing  it  at  once  into  prominence. 
On  his  retirement  from  public  life  (1472),  this 
singular  man  devoted  himself  almost  exclusively 
to  aesthetic  pursuits,  and  by  the  advice  of  three 
great  artists,  Noami,  Geami,  and  Soami,  who 
stood  high  in  his  favour,  he  sought  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Shuko,  then  known  chiefly  as  a  connois- 
seur of  painting  and  an  expert  in  the  art  of 
"  flower-setting."  Shuko  seized  the  occasion  to 
obtain  a  powerful  patron  for  his  special  cult,  and 
Yoshimasa,  charmed  by  the  novelty  as  well  as 
the  quaint  grace  of  the  conception,  espoused  it 
vigorously.  He  had  just  planned  his  celebrated 
Silver  Pavilion,  and  he  added  to  it  the  first 
"  tea  chamber "  ever  built  in  Japan,  calling  it 
Shuko-an,  after  its  deviser,  and  writing  the  name 
with  his  own  hand  on  a  tablet  which  was  placed 


JAPAN 

over  the  door.  At  once  the  Cha-no-yu  obtained 
wide  vogue  among  the  aristocracy.  They  found 
in  it,  just  as  Shuko  had  hoped,  an  element  of 
gentle  asceticism  gratifying  to  the  conscience, 
and  a  charm  of  method  appealing  to  the  most 
refined  taste.  It  seemed,  in  fact,  to  bring  within 
easy  reach  of  fashionable  dilettante  the  virtues 
which  the  samurai  cultivated  by  the  severe  dis- 
cipline of  religious  meditation ;  while  to  the 
samurai,  on  the  other  hand,  it  disclosed  a  vista 
of  refined  graces  without  any  apparent  concession 
to  the  vices  of  self-indulgence  or  effeminacy. 
For  the  tendency  of  the  cult  was  to  combine 
aesthetic  eclecticism  of  the  most  fastidious  nature 
with  the  severest  canons  of  simplicity  and  auster- 
ity. As  each  disciple  of  the  system  sat  in  a  tiny 
chamber,  its  dimensions  and  furniture  conform- 
ing with  rigid  rules,  handled  utensils  of  rude 
type,  and  looked  out  on  a  garden  where  the  wild 
and  rustic  features  of  nature  were  prominent,  he 
seemed  to  himself  to  be  a  kind  of  social  anchorite 
eschewing  every  form  of  luxury  or  ostentation,  but 
at  the  same  time  cultivating  artistic  tastes  which 
differentiated  him  agreeably  from  the  vulgar  and 
the  uninitiated.  The  aristocrat  and  the  soldier 
thus  came  together  on  a  common  plane,  and  if 
the  blase  sybarite,  Yoshimasa,  found  something 
delightful  in  the  cult,  the  jovial  soldier,  Nobunaga, 
and  the  splendid  strategists  and  statesmen,  Hide- 
yoshi  (the  T^aiko]  and  Tokugawa  lyeyasu,  patron- 
ised and  practised  it  with  equal  ardour.  Its 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

greatest  master,  the  man  who  has  been  placed 
by  the  unanimous  acclaim  of  posterity  on  the 
highest  pinnacle  of  the  craft,  was  the  ill-fated 
Sen-no-Rikiu,  who,  obedient  to  the  spirit  that 
directed  the  policy  of  his  patron  Hideyoshi,  the 
Aristarchus  as  well  as  the  Cassar  of  Japanese 
history,  added  many  features  of  simplicity  and 
economy  to  the  ceremonial,  so  that  it  ceased  to 
be  limited  to  the  aristocracy  and  was  brought 
within  reach  of  the  middle  classes.  There  have 
been  in  four  centuries  only  six  acknowledged 
high-priests  of  the  cult :  Shuko,  who  initiated 
the  Ashikaga  ruler,  Yoshimasa  ;  J6-6,  who  taught 
the  principles  of  the  cult  to  Nobunaga ;  Sen-no- 
Rikiu,  preceptor  of  the  Taiko ;  Furuta  Oribe-no-jo, 
who  initiated  Hidetada,  the  second  Tokugawa 
Shogun ;  Kobori  Tenshu-no-Kami,  who  performed 
the  same  office  for  the  third  of  the  Tokugawa 
rulers,  lyemitsu ;  and  Katakiri  Iw  ami-no-Kami, 
the  teacher  of  Tokugawa  lyetsuna. 

In  the  tea  pavilion  devised  by  Shuk6,  the 
principal  chamber  was  nine  feet  square,  with  an 
alcove  which  measured  six  feet  by  three.  The 
pavilion  was  roofed  with  shingles,  and  the  guest- 
chamber  was  ceiled  with  a  single  board  of  finely 
grained  timber.  The  walls  were  covered  with 
monochromatic  paper  having  a  wrinkled  surface, 
and  the  tea  utensils  were  arranged  in  set  order  on 
a  movable  cabinet  (daisu).  The  hearth  was  a  foot 
and  a  half  square,  and  over  it  was  placed  an  iron 
urn  chased  in  low  relief.  J6-6,  the  immediate 


JAPAN 

successor  of  Shuko,  while  preserving  the  dimen- 
sions fixed  by  the  latter,  substituted  plaster  for 
paper  on  the  walls,  reduced  the  number  of  articles 
in  the  tea  equipage,  and  caused  the  door  to  be 
made  of  bamboo  instead  of  boards.  He  also  in- 
troduced the  custom  of  placing  the  tea  equipage 
in  a  cupboard  instead  of  on  a  cabinet,  and  of 
hanging  the  urn  by  a  chain  from  the  ceiling  in- 
stead of  supporting  it  over  the  hearth  on  a  tripod. 
This  simplified  form  of  room  subsequently  came 
to  be  called  the  "  Chain  Chamber/*  as  distin- 
guished from  the  more  elaborate  pavilion  of 
Shuko.  By  Sen-no-Rikiu  further  modifications 
were  devised  in  the  direction  of  homeliness.  He 
reduced  the  dimensions  of  the  tea-room  from  four 
and  a  half  mats  (a  mat  is  six  feet  by  three)  to  two 
and  a  half ;  caused  it  to  be  covered  with  a  thatch 
of  bamboo  grass  instead  of  a  roof  of  elaborately 
laid  shingles,  and  generally  simplified  the  charac- 
ter of  the  equipage.  But  after  his  death  (1591) 
his  disciples  dispersed,  some  abandoning  altogether 
a  cult  whose  greatest  master  had  met  with  such 
a  tragic  fate,  and  some  eschewing  the  particular 
fashions  to  which  he  had  given  his  name.  One 
man  only,  Sokei,  remained  faithful  to  the  princi- 
ples of  his  teacher,  and  he,  observing  the  gradual 
degeneration  of  Sen's  art,  and  recognising  his  own 
inability  to  arrest  its  decadence,  left  his  home,  clad 
in  pilgrim's  garb,  and  was  never  heard  of  again. 
Evil  days  for  the  Cha-no-yu  continued  until  the 
time  of  the  Second  Tokugawa  Shogun,  Hidetada 

256 


.OYXOT   .yiflAI    OTIM   3HT   VII 


1   38 UGH 


HOUSE   FOR  THE  TEA   CEREMONY   IN  THE   MITO   PARK,   TOKYO. 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

(1605—1623).  This  ruler  devoted  his  life  to  the 
peaceful  development  of  the  Empire,  and  to  the 
fortification  and  adornment  of  the  northern  capi- 
tal, Yedo.  To  him  his  country  owes  two  im- 
mortal monuments  of  national  art,  the  tombs 
and  mausolea  of  Shiba  and  of  Uyeno.  Appre- 
ciating the  nature  of  the  Cha-no-yu,  the  Shogun 
appointed  Furuta,  Baron  of  Oribe,  to  be  Court 
Instructor  of  the  cult.  But  the  tranquillity  of 
the  era  inspired  a  taste  for  luxury,  and  the  Cha- 
no-yu  observances  reverted  to  the  costly  refine- 
ment of  Yoshimasa  rather  than  to  the  simple 
thrift  of  Sen-no-Rikiu's  warlike  days.  Nor  was 
this  tendency  corrected  under  the  succeeding 
Shogun,  lyemitsu  (1623—1651),  one  of  the  most 
energetic  and  uncompromising  rulers  that  ever 
governed  Japan.  He  indeed  fully  recognised 
the  social  influences  of  the  Cha-no-yuy  and  con- 
ferred the  office  of  Court  Instructor  on  the  cele- 
brated Kobori.  But  the  spirit  of  the  time  did 
not  lend  itself  to  asceticism  in  any  form.  Private 
persons  were  too  prosperous  and  officials  too  free 
from  care  to  be  satisfied  with  the  austere  fashions 
of  J6-6  and  Sen-no-Rikiu.  Oribe  and  Kobori 
made  no  resolute  efforts  to  correct  the  growing 
epicureanism  of  their  cult.  They  appear  to  have 
understood  that  the  purpose  of  the  office  con- 
ferred on  them  by  the  Court  in  Edo  was  rather 
to  popularise  than  to  purify  the  fashions  of  the 
Cha-no-yu.  Thus,  when  one  of  Kobori's  friends 
devised  new  models  for  both  the  tea  pavilion  and 

VOL.    II.  17  2C7 


JAPAN 

its  furniture,  Kobori,  by  openly  approving  the 
inventor's  taste  and  ingenuity,  helped  not  only  to 
make  him  famous,  but  also  to  relax  the  austere 
canons  of  the  old  masters.  That  he  did  all  this 
with  open  eyes  is  proved  by  his  recorded  reply 
to  a  critic  who  sought  some  explanation  of  his 
readiness  to  vary  the  principles  of  Sen-no-Rikiu : 
"  Rikiu  is  the  father  of  Japanese  Cha-no-yu.  His 
methods  are  followed  to  this  day  by  every  sincere 
disciple  of  the  cult.  They  have  never  been 
equalled,  though  rival  methods  may  appeal  more 
strongly  to  individual  tastes.  Even  inscriptions 
and  certificates  written  by  his  hand  rank  with  the 
autographs  of  sainted  priests.  His  was  one  of 
those  rare  cases  where  a  great  opportunity  finds 
an  equally  great  man  to  deal  with  it.  Furuta 
and  I,  Kobori,  only  endeavour  to  imitate  Rikiu's 
methods,  with  the  object  of  uniting  into  a  strong 
brotherhood,  and  cultivating  the  friendship  of, 
men  who  devote  themselves  to  promoting  the 
peace  of  society  and  the  well-being  of  the  nation. 
We  cannot  even  claim  a  deep  knowledge  of  the 
spirit  of  Rikiu's  art.  If  we  depart  from  the 
styles  which  he  prescribed,  it  is  not  of  deliberate 
choice,  but  because  the  manners  of  men  must 
adapt  themselves  to  the  mood  of  their  times." 

But  though,  as  years  went  by,  fashion  and 
fancy  introduced  various  innovations,  the  general 
character  of  the  Tea  Ceremonial  remained  un- 
changed. Notably  invariable  were  six  rules 
originated  by  Rikiu,  but  reduced  to  writing  by 

258 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

his  faithful  disciple  Sokei.  Of  these,  two  are 
curiously  trivial.  They  direct  that  when  the 
guests  have  assembled  in  the  waiting  place,  the 
signal  for  their  entry  to  the  tea  pavilion  shall  be 
given  by  wooden  clappers ;  and  that  the  ablution 
bowl  shall  be  kept  filled  with  pure  water.  The 
other  four  precepts  are  very  characteristic  of  the 
spirit  of  the  cult.  The  first  is  that  any  guest  who, 
having  been  invited  to  a  tea  reunion,  experiences  a 
feeling  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  inadequacy  of 
the  furniture  or  the  inelegance  of  the  surround- 
ings, should  withdraw  quietly  as  soon  as  possible, 
so  as  not  to  disturb  the  harmony  of  the  party. 
The  second  is  that  all  social  tittle-tattle,  whether 
of  present  or  past  times,  is  out  of  place  in  a  tea 
pavilion,  as  it  should  be  everywhere  out  of  place 
for  disciples  of  the  cult.  The  third  is  that,  how- 
ever noble  the  host,  words  of  flattery  or  deceit 
should  be  strictly  interdicted  ;  and  the  fourth, 
that  a  tea  reunion  ought  never  to  last  more  than 
four  hours  unless  some  moral  or  chivalrous  topic, 
demanding  longer  discussion,  has  been  broached. 
These  rules,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  four 
cardinal  qualities  which  each  professor  of  the 
craft  is  bound  to  cultivate,  indicate  sufficiently 
clearly  the  nature  of  the  Cha-no-yu  philosophy. 

But  they  do  not  give  any  clear  indication  as  to 
the  so-called  mysteries  of  the  cult ;  the  thirteen 
methods  that  the  novice  had  to  study  by  way  of 
preliminary ;  the  five  arts  that  were  acquired  by 
the  craftsman ;  the  "  three  degrees  of  the  broad 

259 


JAPAN 

salver,'*  with  their  three  varieties  of  "  genuine," 
"  abbreviated,"  and  "  cursive  "  —  corresponding 
to  the  three  styles  of  calligraphy  —  which  the 
passed-master  had  to  be  familiar  with.  These, 
which,  in  truth,  are  nothing  more  than  a  multi- 
tude of  conventions  and  ceremonials,  cannot 
possibly  be  set  forth  in  any  volume  of  ordinary 
dimensions,  and  would  be  utterly  wearisome  to 
the  reader.  A  brief  general  sketch  will  be 
sufficient. 

The  ceremony  has  various  names  according  to 
the  time  of  its  performance.  There  is  the 
"  morning  tea "  (asa  no  Cha-no-Tu9  or  ake  no 
Cha-no-Yu,  or  asa-gomi)y  which  takes  place  at 
any  hour  between  three  A.  M.  and  eight  A.  M. 
There  is  the  evening  tea  (yo-gomi).  There  is  the 
kashi  no  Cha-no-Tu,  or  tea  with  cake,  which  fol- 
lows the  morning  or  afternoon  meal,  and  is  thus 
between  eight  and  ten  o'clock  in  the  forenoon, 
or  between  two  and  four  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon. Then  there  are  the  casual  cup  (fuji  no 
yakusoku),  which  is  practically  the  same  as  the 
post-prandial ;  the  mid-day  cup  at  the  hour  of 
the  Horse  (noon) ;  the  "  evening  chat,"  at  the 
hour  of  the  Cock  (from  six  to  eight  o'clock 
p.  M.)  :  the  atomi,  or  "  after  glance,"  which  is  a 
sort  of  second-hand  entertainment  after  some 
guest  of  note  has  departed ;  and  finally  the  kuchi- 
kiri,  or  "  firstlings,"  which  takes  place  when  the 
jar  containing  the  new  leaf  is  opened  for  the 
first  time  in  the  tenth  month. 

260 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

The  phraseology  employed  with  reference  to 
all  matters  bearing  on  the  ceremony  is  precisely 
fixed,  but  this  part  of  the  affair  has  little  mean- 
ing for  Westerners.  It  is  enough  to  mention  that 
one  never  speaks  of  "  drinking  "  tea,  but  of"  tak- 
ing "  it ;  that  to  "  abridge  "  any  part  of  the  cere- 
mony becomes  to  "  apologise ; "  that  all  objects 
of  art  which  have  received  the  approval  of 
the  old  masters  are  respectfully  alluded  to  as 
"  models ;  "  and  that  in  indicating  dimensions  the 
plait  of  a  mat  is  used  as  a  unit,  such  vulgar 
terms  as  "  feet "  and  "  inches  "  being  carefully 
eschewed. 

The  details  of  carrying  out  the  ceremony 
vary,  but  there  are  some  general  customs  which 
scarcely  permit  alteration.  The  first  care  of  the 
host  is  to  see  that  the  pavilion  is  thoroughly 
cleansed,  and  that  every  apparatus  of  an  ignoble 
character  is  removed.  Similar  scrutiny  is  ex- 
tended to  the  outer  passage,  which  should  be 
sprinkled  lightly  with  pure  water.  A  tobacco- 
box  is  then  placed  in  the  outer  waiting-place, 
after  which  the  condition  of  the  inner  waiting- 
place  is  attended  to,  and  cushions,  one  for  each 
guest,  are  there  arranged.  On  the  first  day  of 
the  tenth  month  pine  sprays  are  spread  all  over 
the  garden,  and  from  the  first  day  of  the  first 
month  these  are  taken  up,  little  by  little,  com- 
mencing with  the  parts  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  the  tea  pavilion.  This  is  by  way  of  welcom- 
ing the  gradual  advent  of  spring.  At  the  begin- 

261 


JAPAN 

ning  of  the  second  month  the  process  is  ex- 
tended, and  at  the  end  of  the  third  month  the 
sprays  about  the  outer  waiting-place  are  entirely 
removed.  The  dust-bin  is  always  kept  covered 
with  green  leaves.  In  the  outer  waiting-place  is 
set  a  ewer  of  white  pine  with  a  lid  of  red  pine 
and  a  ladle  of  white  pine,  the  latter  being  laid 
across  the  lid,  mouth  uppermost ;  if  the  ewer  be 
of  metal,  the  mouth  of  the  ladle  is  turned  down- 
ward. In  the  inner  waiting-place  is  set  a  stone 
ewer  with  red  pine  ladle.  In  the  outer  waiting- 
place  are  two  pendent  lamps,  one  of  metal,  the 
other  of  wood,  the  latter  being  suspended  beside 
the  ewer.  The  oil  vessel  for  these  lamps  is  of 
unglazed  Fukakusa  pottery.  The  inner  passage 
should  have  a  stone  lantern,  with  an  oil-holder 
of  the  same  wood  as  that  of  the  wooden  lamp  in 
the  waiting-place.  The  inner  waiting-place  is 
lit  by  a  standing  lantern  (andori},  of  which  the 
upper  lid  should  be  removed  and  placed  against 
the  wall,  except  in  windy  weather.  Beside  it  are 
placed  a  wick  tongs  and  oil  ladle.  At  morning 
reunions  the  decoration  of  the  alcove  consists  of 
pictures  during  the  first  part  of  the  entertainment, 
and  flowers  during  the  second.  However  cold 
the  weather  and  however  numerous  the  guests, 
only  one  brazier  is  allowed  to  be  placed  in  the 
outer  waiting-place.  Even  the  lining  of  tobacco- 
boxes  is  regulated  according  to  their  shape. 
Equally  strict  rules  apply  to  the  length  of  the 
pipe,  the  manner  of  placing  it  on  the  tobacco- 

262 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

box,  the  colour  of  its  stem,  and  the  direction  in 
which  the  bowl  should  lie  with  respect  to  boxes 
of  different  forms.  The  position  of  each  guest  is 
fixed ;  the  construction  of  the  windows  in  the  tea 
pavilion  and  the  material  of  the  blinds  are  deter- 
mined ;  the  management  of  the  rain-doors  is  in 
accurate  accord  with  the  season,  and  every  article 
of  the  tea  equipage  has  its  own  invariable  posi- 
tion. All  these  things  are  the  alphabet  of  the 
cult.  As  for  the  host,  the  routine  of  his  be- 
haviour is  accurately  prescribed.  So  soon  as  he 
receives  word  that  all  the  guests  have  assembled 
in  the  outer  waiting-place,  he  repairs  to  the  tea 
pavilion,  raises  the  ewer,  and  mends  the  fire  under 
it ;  clears  away  the  ashes ;  lights  the  incense ; 
sweeps  the  mats  with  a  small  hand-brush ;  puts 
the  lid  of  the  ewer,  half  on,  and  then,  seating 
himself  before  the  alcove,  looks  carefully  at  the 
picture  and  other  ornaments.  Satisfied  that 
everything  is  as  it  ought  to  be,  he  pours  some 
fresh  water  into  the  ewer,  and  goes  out  to  wel- 
come the  guests.  In  greeting  them,  the  usual 
method  is  to  kneel  within  the  door  of  the  pavilion 
and  make  an  obeisance,  but  if  there  be  a  nobleman 
among  the  guests,  the  obeisance  must  be  made 
outside.  Then  the  host  returns,  leaving  the  door 
of  the  tea  pavilion  partially  open.  The  guests, 
on  their  side,  having  concluded  their  greetings, 
proceed  to  wash  their  hands  in  the  order  of  their 
rank,  and  then,  entering  the  pavilion,  go  to  the 
alcove,  one  by  one,  and  examine  the  picture 

263 


JAPAN 

hanging  there.  Thence  they  pass,  in  the  same 
order,  to  the  hearth,  where  they  inspect  the  urn. 
In  these  proceedings  the  rule  is  that  so  soon  as 
the  principal  guest  reaches  the  threshold  of  the 
tea  pavilion,  the  next  senior  goes  to  the  ewer 
and  washes  his  hands,  advancing  thence  to  the 
door  of  the  pavilion  so  soon  as  he  sees  the  senior 
opposite  the  alcove,  and  thence  to  the  alcove 
when  the  senior  is  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
hearth.  This  order  is  observed  throughout.  It 
is  the  duty  of  the  junior  guest  to  restore  the 
tobacco-box  to  its  place  before  leaving  the  wait- 
ing-room, and  to  pile  the  sitting  cushions  one 
upon  the  other.  At  reunions  where  lights  are 
used,  their  management  is  also  duly  regulated. 
The  last  guest  has  to  shut  the  door  of  the  pa- 
vilion, not,  however,  before  he  has  performed  the 
prescribed  circuit  of  the  room  and  reached  his 
appointed  place.  The  first  subject  of  conversa- 
tion is  the  picture  in  the  alcove.  When  the 
guests  have  expressed  their  opinions  about  it, 
the  host  replenishes  the  charcoal  on  the  hearth. 
The  length  and  thickness  of  the  sticks  of  char- 
coal are  fixed  with  precision  according  to  the 
style  of  the  hearth.  So  soon  as  the  host  raises 
the  urn  to  put  on  the  charcoal,  the  guests  ap- 
proach the  hearth  in  order  and  examine  it  as 
well  as  the  urn.  When  a  furo  (a  pottery  fire- 
box) is  used,  this  examination  is  not  made  until 
a  later  stage ;  neither  does  the  host  replenish  the 
charcoal.  He  merely  wipes  the  rim  of  the  furo, 

264 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

handling  his  cloth  in  a  set  fashion  and  passing  it 
twice  over  the  right  of  the  furo  and  once  over 
the  left  and  front.  He  then  opens  the  kitchen 
door  and  calls  for  the  repast.  Numerous  rules 
apply  to  the  minutiae  of  the  repast ;  to  the  con- 
duct of  the  host  and  guests  ;  to  the  manner  of 
the  latter' s  first  retirement ;  to  the  re-arrange- 
ment of  the  pavilion  in  their  temporary  absence, 
and  to  their  return  for  the  second  stage  of  the 
entertainment,  during  which  the  tea  is  served. 
It  is  made  by  the  host  in  presence  of  his 
guests.  No  teapot  is  used.  The  tea,  taken  in 
the  form  of  the  finest  powder  from  a  little  jar 
of  choice  faience,  is  placed  at  once  in  the  drink- 
ing cup,  and  boiling  water  is  then  poured  on  it. 
Minute  attention  must  be  paid  to  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  water.  A  brisk  fire  should  be  used. 
The  water  gives  the  first  indication  of  heat  by 
a  low,  intermittent  singing,  and  by  the  appear- 
ance of  large,  slowly  rising  bubbles  known  as 
"fish  eyes"  (gyo-mokti).  The  next  stage  is 
marked  by  agitation  like  the  seething  of  a  hot 
spring,  accompanied  by  a  constant  succession  of 
rapidly  ascending  bubbles.  In  the  next  stage 
waves  appear  upon  the  surface,  and  these  finally 
subsiding,  all  appearance  of  steam  is  lost.  The 
water  has  now  attained  the  condition  of  ma- 
turity :  it  is  "  aged  hot  water  "  (r'oto).  If  the  fire 
is  good  and  well  sustained,  all  these  stages  can 
be  distinctly  noted,  says  the  canon.  Then  the 
cup,  together  with  a  neatly  folded  napkin,  is 

265 


JAPAN 

handed  to  the  guests  in  order,  each  one  wiping 
it  after  he  has  drunk,  the  last  guest  being  careful 
to  finish  its  contents.  Thereafter  the  cup  goes 
round  again  to  be  itself  examined.  Even  in 
these  comparatively  simple  operations  there  are 
numerous  points  of  etiquette  to  be  observed. 
Every  part  of  the  equipage,  every  article  that  is 
used,  even  to  the  charcoal  and  its  receptacle,  are 
separately  scrutinised  by  the  guests  at  strictly 
ordained  periods  of  the  entertainment  and  in 
regular  order.  The  whole  thing  is  a  study  : 
host  and  guest  alike  must  be  drilled  by  long 
instruction  and  practice.  It  is  impossible  to 
conceive  any  code  of  etiquette  more  minute  and 
less  flexible.  In  former  days  of  perfect  polite- 
ness it  was  counted  a  mark  of  pride,  and  even  of 
inhospitality,  to  issue  an  ordinary  invitation  at 
long  notice:  men  were  supposed  to  be  always 
ready  to  receive  their  friends.  But  with  the 
Cha-no-Tu  a  different  fashion  was  observed. 
Invitations  were  sent  three  or  four  days  in  ad- 
vance, and  were  even  repeated  in  the  case  of 
old  or  busy  persons.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
amounted  almost  to  an  insult  did  a  guest  fail  to 
visit  his  host  the  day  after  the  ceremonial.  The 
relative  importance  of  the  guests  did  not  neces- 
sarily depend  on  their  rank.  Under  the  thatched 
roof  of  the  tea  pavilion,  such  distinctions  often 
failed  to  receive  recognition.  It  is  related  that, 
during  an  entertainment  given  by  Sen-no-Rikiu, 
a  nobleman  of  high  station  arrived  and  asked 

266 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

permission  to  join  the  party.  Rikiu  consented, 
but  placed  him  in  the  lowest  seat.  In  fact,  the 
etiquette  of  the  Cha-no-Tu  had  precedence  of 
every  social  code. 

The  details  here  set  down,  elaborate  and 
wearisome  as  they  seem,  represent  only  a  fraction 
of  the  immense  mass  of  minutiae  that  a  devotee 
of  the  cult  was  expected  to  master.  But  the 
task  had  its  reward,  for  skill  in  the  craft  con- 
stituted an  universally  recognised  certificate  of 
refinement,  and  the  practice  of  the  ceremonial 
tended  to  educate  serenity  of  mind  as  well  as  to 
substitute  a  placid  atmosphere  of  aestheticism  and 
graceful  courtesy  for  the  storm  of  fierce  ambi- 
tions and  feudal  struggles  that  had  long  swept 
over  the  country.  The  Cha-no-Tu  never  had 
more  zealous  patron  than  the  Taiko.  In  Octo- 
ber, 1585,  he  organised  a  grand  reunion  in  the 
Kitano  Pine  Forest.  It  lasted  for  ten  days,  and 
instead  of  sending  invitations  to  selected  indivi- 
duals, the  Taiko  caused  placards  to  be  posted 
not  only  in  Kyoto  but  also  in  the  distant  towns 
of  Nara  and  Sakai,  announcing  that  every  lover 
of  the  cha-do  (tea-path)  would  be  welcome,  and 
that  all  would  be  free  to  erect  temporary  pavi- 
lions according  to  their  fancy.  During  this  fete, 
which  became  a  historical  event,  the  Taiko  went 
from  pavilion  to  pavilion,  viewing  the  objects 
of  virtu  that  formed  part  of  the  tea  equipage 
of  each  owner,  and  showing  the  keenest  interest 
in  everything  connected  with  the  ceremonial. 

267 


JAPAN 

The  aesthetic  influence  of  the  tea  cult  was 
even  more  remarkable,  perhaps,  than  its  social 
or  philosophical  aspect.  Every  man  of  refine- 
ment or  opulence  may  be  said  to  have  been  a 
cha-jiny  and  every  cha-jin  was,  of  necessity,  a 
virtuoso  of  greater  or  less  skill.  A  collection  of 
art-objects  soon  came  to  signify  simply  a  tea 
equipage  so  extensive  as  to  offer  constant  novel- 
ties to  the  connoisseurs  who  from  time  to  time 
were  bidden  to  the  pavilion,  and  so  choice  that 
each  specimen  might  safely  endure  the  ordeal 
of  close  examination  by  parties  of  skilled  con- 
noisseurs. Nothing  faulty  or  spurious  could 
survive  such  ordeals,  —  that  is  to  say,  nothing 
faulty  or  spurious  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  tea  clubs.  This  reservation  is  necessary, 
because  the  tea  clubs  had  two  distinct  and 
altogether  dissimilar  points  of  view.  One  of 
their  canons  prescribed  an  artistic  standard  of  the 
highest  excellence,  though  never  sanctioning 
anything  florid  or  meretricious ;  another  passed 
to  the  opposite  extreme  of  homeliness,  and 
established  rules  of  taste  which  attached  no  value 
whatever  to  elegance  of  form,  perfection  of 
technique  or  beauty  of  design,  but  bade  the 
true  virtuoso  look  first  for  qualities  owing  their 
value  solely  to  association  and  appreciable  by 
courtesy  only.  This  second  variety  of  objects, 
an  extensive  class,  received  from  the  irreverent 
an  appropriate  title,  "rusty  things"  (sabi-mono}. 
They  were  strictly  and  logically  true  to  the 

268 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

esoterics  of  the  cult,  their  redeeming  points 
being  entirely  of  the  impressionist  order  and 
their  qualities  having  reference  solely  to  the 
moral  attributes  that  the  tea  philosophy  sought 
to  inculcate.  Perhaps  in  the  whole  range  of 
Japanese  characteristics  there  is  none  so  perplex- 
ing to  a  foreign  observer  as  this  phase  of  aesthet- 
ics. Yet  the  riddle  is  resolved  at  once  when 
the  "  rusty  things  "  are  considered  not  exoteri- 
cally  but  esoterically ;  not  as  specimens  of  art 
but  as  symbols  of  a  cult.  Many  of  them  are 
indescribably  ugly.  Never  intended  to  be  choice 
productions,  they  present  gross  technical  defects, 
which  very  defects  constitute  merits  in  the  eyes 
of  a  Cha-jin.  Blisters  resulting  from  excessive 
heat  in  the  potter's  kiln  become  marks  of  special 
manufacture ;  solutions  of  continuity  in  the 
glaze  of  a  porcelain  vessel  are  prized  evidences  of  a 
certain  era;  deformity  of  shape  is  a  natural  caprice ; 
absence  of  every  outwardly  attractive  quality  typ- 
ifies unpretentious  utility,  and  accidents  of  deco- 
ration suggest  freedom  from  artifical  regularity. 
These  homely  failures  survived  originally  by  tol- 
erance. Some  of  them  had  even  been  thrown 
into  the  refuse  heap  before  the  Cha-jin  picked 
them  up  and  consecrated  them  to  his  cult,  wrap- 
ping them  in  silk  crape  or  rich  brocade,  repairing 
their  fractures  with  gold  lacquer,  and  enclosing 
them  in  boxes  of  the  finest  and  costliest  work- 
manship. Evidently  this  phase  of  the  tea  cult 
offered  no  encouragement  to  the  progress  of  the 

269 


JAPAN 

fine  arts,  for  it  discredited  everything  elaborate 
or  beautiful.  Korean  porcelain  and  pottery,  in- 
ferior at  their  best  and  worthless  at  their  worst, 
were  particularly  prized,  and  of  all  the  keramic 
products  of  China  the  tea  clubs  took  only  cups 
of  Chien-yao  —  temmoku  (heaven's  eye)  they  called 
it  —  not  because  they  cared  for  the  wonderful 
raven's  wing  glaze  with  its  singular  streaking  of 
silver  or  dappling  of  russet  which  characterises 
this  Sung  ware,  but  because  its  heavy  thick  pate 
and  black  colour  had  the  merit  of  keeping  the 
tea  warm  and  of  presenting  a  cool  rim  to  the  lips 
of  the  drinker.  It  must  be  admitted,  however, 
that  the  Cha-jin  was  not  altogether  sincere  when 
he  aped  this  humility  of  selection.  If  he  pro- 
fessed himself  content  with  a  homely  object,  he 
averted  any  suspicion  of  economical  motives  by 
lavishing  money  freely  on  its  wrappers  and  recep- 
tacles ;  and  if  he  dispensed  with  beauty  he  ex- 
acted prestige  and  "  odile."  Enormous  value 
attached  to  objects  that  had  been  approved,  above 
all  used,  by  acknowledged  masters  of  the  cult. 
A  certificate  from  Kobori  Masakazu,  Furuta 
Oribe,  or  Sen-no-Rikiu  added  many  tens  of  gold 
pieces  to  the  value  of  an  object.  Yoshimasa 
brought  together  in  the  Silver  Pavilion  a  collec- 
tion of  utensils  which  were  regarded  as  standards 
of  the  orthodox  tea-equipage.  Oda  Nobunaga 
did  the  same  in  his  castle  of  Azuchi,  and  Hide- 
yoshi  surpassed  them  both  when  he  furnished 
the  Palace  of  Pleasure.  To  have  belonged  to 

270 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

any  of  these  collections  raised  an  object  at  once 
to  a  pinnacle  of  esteem.  Kobori  Masakazu  com- 
piled a  catalogue,  called  the  Meihyo-ki  (celebrated 
utensils),  in  which  he  entered  a  detailed  account 
of  all  the  Cha-no-Tu  apparatus  regarded  in  his 
era  as  the  acme  of  classical  taste.  For  the  origi- 
nals of  any  of  the  objects  thus  catalogued  a 
Cha-jin  has  always  been  willing  to  pay  a  fabulous 
price.  An  illustration  was  afforded  at  a  public 
sale  which  took  place  in  Tokyo  in  April,  1899, 
when  certain  specimens  which  were  identified  as 
having  been  described  in  the  O-kura-cho  (honour- 
able store-room  register  of  Yoshimasa's  collection) 
were  thus  disposed  of:  — 


A  cup  of  stone-ware  covered  with  lustrous  black  glaze  having 
ash-coloured  spots.  (A  specimen  of  Chinese  Chien-yao  of 
the  Sung  dynasty,  known  in  Japan  as  Haikatsugi  Temmoku 
(ash-coloured  Temmoku}.  The  most  ardent  Occidental  lover 
of  u  antiques  "  would  probably  think  five  sovereigns  a  very 
high  price  for  such  a  cup).  Sold  for  3,000  yen. 

A  bamboo  flower-vase  (of  the  kind  known  as  Hitoye-giri ; 
without  decoration  of  any  kind).  507  yen. 

A  bronze  vase ;  body  undecorated ;  cloud-shaped  handles ; 
nine  inches  high.  1,680  yen. 

An  iron  water-boiler  (kama)  of  peculiar  shape.      25 1  yen. 

A  charcoal-holder  made  of  woven  bamboo.     211  yen. 

An  incense-box  (diam.  two  and  a  half  inches ;  depth  one  inch) 
of  black  lacquer  carved  in  layers  ;  with  a  deal  case  marked 
by  Kobori  Yenshiu  no  Kami.  466  yen. 

An  incense-box  (smaller  than  the  last)  of  blue  and  white  porce- 
lain, the  decoration  a  roughly  painted  water-ox.  158  yen. 

An  iron  water-boiler  (the  style  known  as  arari  gama ;  i.  e.  the 
surface  granulated  in  hail-stone  diaper.  356  yen. 

A  similar  boiler  with  handles.     250  yen. 

271 


JAPAN 

A  stand  of  black  lacquer,  for  an  alcove  ornament  (worth  about 
fifty  sen  from  an  artistic  point  of  view).  238  yen. 

A  scroll  inscribed  with  the  ideographs  hei  shin  (mens  aqua), 
from  the  pen  of  a  litterateur  of  the  Tang  dynasty.  1,580  yen. 

A  scroll  inscribed  with  ideographs  from  the  pen  of  a  Sung  litter- 
ateur. 488  yen. 

A  bamboo  tea-ladle  (used  by  Sen-no-Rikiu).     518  yen. 

A  miniature  screen,  of  the  kind  used  for  placing  beside  the  fur- 
nace in  the  Tea  Ceremony;  painted  by  Shokwado.  258  yen. 

Five  small  blue  and  white  porcelain  cups,  from  the  kiln  of 
Shonzui  Gorodayu.  121  yen. 

Five  small  cups  of  Ming  porcelain  (red  glaze  with  traces  of 
gold  decoration),  no  yen. 

The  only  plea  that  could  ever  have  been  set  up 
on  behalf  of  such  objects,  namely,  their  sim- 
plicity and  costlessness,  is  at  once  destroyed  when 
they  are  thus  extravagantly  valued  for  the  sake 
of  association. 

Had  the  aesthetics  of  the  Cha-no-yu  been  limited 
to  this  narrow  sphere,  the  result  must  have  been 
to  create  hopeless  confusion  between  beauty  and 
archaism,  and  to  rob  art  of  all  incentive.  But, 
as  has  been  stated  above,  there  was  another  side 
to  the  cult.  If  the  ceremonial  of  the  Ko-cha,  or 
powdered  tea,  when  conducted  on  perfectly  ortho- 
dox lines,  forbade  any  departure  from  the  severest 
and  rudest  principles,  the  ceremony  of  the  Sen- 
cha,  or  infused  tea,  permitted  a  wide  range  of 
ideals,  and  dispensed  with  many  of  the  forms 
and  conventions  of  the  practice.  In  the  Sen-cha 
rite  technical  excellence,  gracefulness  of  shape, 
and  rarity  were  valued  at  their  full  worth,  though 
prime  importance  continued  to  be  attached  to  the 

272 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

sobriety  prescribed  by  the  classics  of  the  cult. 
Hence  from  the  catalogue  of  objects  of  virtu 
offered  by  China  and  Korea,  her  implicitly  trusted 
preceptors  in  so  many  matters,  Japan  made  a 
strikingly  narrow  choice.  Instead  of  taking  for 
porcelain  utensils  the  liquid-dawn  reds,  the  ripe- 
grape  purples,  the  five-coloured  egg-shells,  or  any 
of  the  glowing  monochromes  and  half-toned 
enamels  of  the  Chinese  keramists,  she  confined 
herself  to  ivory  whites,  delicate  celadons,  com- 
paratively inornate  specimens  of  blue  sous  converte, 
and  full  bodied,  roughly  applied,  over-glaze 
enamels  such  as  characterised  the  later  eras 
of  the  Ming  dynasty.  It  has  astonished  many 
students  of  Japanese  manners  and  customs  to  find 
that  objects  which  Europe  and  America  search 
for  to-day  in  the  markets  of  China  with  eager 
appreciation,  are  scarcely  represented  at  all  in  the 
collections  that  Japanese  virtuosi  made  at  an  epoch 
when  such  masterpieces  were  abundantly  produced 
within  easy  reach  of  their  doors.  The  explana- 
tion is  to  be  sought  in  the  conservatism  of  the 
tea  clubs.  But  the  justice  must  be  done  of  ac- 
knowledging that,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  Japan- 
ese adopted  in  this  matter  the  standards  set  by 
the  Chinese  themselves.  There  exists  in  China 
an  illustrated  manuscript  compiled  by  Hsiang,  an 
art  critic  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Among  some 
eighty  specimens  therein  depicted  as  chefs-d'ceicvre 
on  which  the  Chinese  virtuosi  of  the  time  had 
set  their  cachet,  fifty  are  celadons.  Hence,  when 

VOL.  ii. —  1 8 


JAPAN 

the  Taiko  decided  to  import,  for  presentation  to 
certain  great  temples,  the  finest  keramic  products 
obtainable  in  China,  he  had  no  hesitation  in  se- 
lecting vases  of  Lung-Chuang-yao,  then  the  best 
celadon  of  the  Chin-te-ching  kilns.  It  need 
scarcely  be  added  that  in  her  own  arts  also,  both 
pictorial  and  applied,  Japan  was  largely  guided 
by  the  dicta  of  the  tea  clubs.  For  their  use  and 
in  obedience  to  their  taste,  her  potters  toiled 
through  centuries  to  produce  cups,  bowls,  ewers, 
and  tiny  jars  covered  with  glazes  which,  while 
they  testify  great  technical  skill  and  often  show 
glows  and  gleams  of  most  attractive  colours,  are 
nevertheless  sober  almost  to  severity.  It  was  also 
for  their  use  and  in  obedience  to  their  taste  that 
her  artists  carried  the  stenography  of  painting  to 
its  extreme  limits,  making  half-a-dozen  strokes 
convey  a  wide  range  of  impression.  And  it  was 
also  for  their  use  and  in  obedience  to  their  taste 
that  her  lacquerers  and  other  art-artisans  lavished 
a  wealth  of  decorative  effort  on  the  least  visible 
parts  of  an  object,  and  gave  infinite  care  to  tech- 
nical minutiae  which  almost  equal  care  is  needed 
to  appreciate.  In  fact,  throughout  the  whole 
range  of  Japan's  ethics  and  aesthetics  the  influence 
of  the  tea  cult  may  be  clearly  traced.  To  it  she 
owes  much  of  the  delicate  grace  and  extraordinary 
refinement  of  detail  that  distinguish  her  art  pro- 
ducts ;  to  it  she  owes  much  of  the  repose  of 
manner,  elaborate  courtesy,  and  studied  imper- 
turbability of  demeanour,  that  characterise  her 

274 


REFINEMENTS    AND    PASTIMES 

social  intercourse ;  to  it  she  owes  a  widely  dif- 
fused exercise  of  the  art-critical  faculty  ;  and  to 
it  she  owes  an  impulse  of  generous  patronage 
which  contributed  immensely  to  the  progress  of 
all  her  art  industries.  But  to  it  also  must  be  at- 
tributed a  conservatism  which  cramped  the  genius 
of  her  artists  ;  a  false  standard  which  confused 
beauty  and  archaism,  and  an  influence  which 
contributed  largely  to  the  formalism  that  con- 
stitutes a  distinct  blemish  in  her  character. 


275 


Appendix 


277 


Appendix 


NOTE  I,  —  These  families  are  often  spoken  of  as  the  Hel-ke 
and  the  Gen-ji^  and  the  long  struggle  between  them  as  the  Gem- 
pci  war. 

NOTE  2.  —  Some  of  these  animals  are  said  to  have  weighed 
as  much  as  an  ox.  Twelve  great  fights  took  place  every  month, 
and  when  the  champion  dog  was  led  through  the  streets,  people 
doffed  their  head-gear  and  even  knelt  down  in  reverence. 

NOTE  3. — Yoritomo's  eldest  son,  Yoriiye,  was  deposed 
from  power  and  imprisoned  for  life  by  the  Hqjo,  who  thus 
became  supreme  in  Kamakura. 

NOTE  4.  —  Thus,  in  his  old  age,  riding  alone  by  night 
among  possible  foes,  he  gave  his  sword  to  be  carried  by  the 
companion  who  had  most  reason  to  desire  his  death. 

NOTE  5.  —  In  a  moment  of  fury  he  ordered  a  man  who 
had  insulted  him  to  be  crucified,  but  before  the  sentence  could 
be  executed,  he  recognised  that  the  offender's  motive  had  been 
good,  and  not  only  pardoned  but  promoted  him. 

NOTE  6.  —  To  equip  himself  for  his  first  appearance  as  a 
soldier,  he  robbed  his  employer  of  a  small  sum,  and  reimbursed 
him,  years  afterwards,  by  a  gift  of  a  large  fortune. 

NOTE  7. —  The  title  of  Taik"o  (great  house),  by  which 
Hideyoshi  is  generally  known,  was  taken  by  him  after  he  had 
surrendered  that  of  regent  to  his  heir  apparent. 

NOTE  8.  — This  matter  of  the  evolution  of  the  military 
class  will  be  described  more  accurately  in  subsequent  pages. 

NOTE  9.  —  Another  variety  of  alcove  derived  from  the 
fashions  of  the  Zen  sect  took  the  form  of  a  protrusion  instead 
of  a  recess.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  reading-nook  so  contrived  that 
it  projected  into  the  veranda,  and  thus  received  light  on  three 

279 


APPENDIX 

sides.     This   kind   of  alcove  is  still  seen  in  many  Japanese 
houses.     It  has  undergone  no  change  for  six  centuries 

NOTE  10.  —  It  should  be  explained,  perhaps,  tlat  the 
description  given  in  a  previous  chapter  of  the  suites  cf  rooms 
and  their  intercommunications  in  the  mansion  of  a  prince  or 
high  dignitary  of  State  holds  equally  for  this  epoch.  But  the 
division  of  interior  spaces  is  now  planned  on  a  truch  more 
elaborate  scale,  owing  to  the  improved  lighting  facilit'es  afforded 
by  paper  doors.  The  decorator  soon  appreciated  ind  applied 
the  principle  of  congruity  in  choosing  his  motives,  and  thus 
each  room  had  its  own  distinguishing  pictorial  subjects,  from 
which,  also,  it  ultimately  derived  its  name,  being  spoken  of 
as  the  "  wistaria  chamber,"  the  "  chamber  of  the  eight  scenic 
gems,"  the  "  crane-and-tortoise  chamber,"  and  so  on.  In  the 
houses  of  military  men  some  of  the  rooms  owed  their  appella- 
tions to  the  weapons  placed  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  their 
entrances,  as  the  "  bow  room,"  or  the  "  spear  room."  But 
such  terms  found  no  place  in  the  nomenclature  of  the  "  illus- 
trious mansions." 

NOTE  1 1.  — These  precautions  succeeded  well,  on  the  whole. 
After  an  area  had  been  swept  by  a  conflagration,  the  fire-proof 
storerooms  usually  remained  standing  intact  among  the  ruins. 
But  the  cost  of  such  edifices  being  large,  many  folks  preferred 
an  underground  storeroom  (tsuchi-kura)^  obviously  a  relic  of 
the  time  when  ordinary  habitations  were  little  better  than  caves. 
Pawnbrokers  specially  affected  the  latter  kind  of  store,  so  that 
during  the  Military  epoch  the  word  "earthen  edifice"  (dozo) 
was  usually  interpreted  in  the  sense  of  "  pawnbroker." 

NOTE  12.  —  In  1576  Oda  Nobunaga  built  at  Azuchi  in 
Omi  a  castle  with  a  donjon  said  to  have  been  one  hundred  feet 
high.  But  as  there  are  no  remains  of  that  stronghold  to-day, 
and  as  history  contains  no  exact  details  of  its  construction, 
Hideyoshi's  castle  at  Osaka  is  taken  as  the  first  complete 
example  of  such  structures  in  Japan. 

NOTE  13.  —  The  glyptic  work  on  this  gate  has  been  per- 
sistently attributed  to  Hidari  Jingoro,  one  of  the  greatest  carvers 
of  Japan.  Jingoro  was  born  in  1574,  and  the  gate  was  erected 
in  the  Momoyama  Palace  in  1585.  Obviously  Jingoro  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it. 

280 


APPENDIX 

NOTE  14.  —  Within  the  enclosure  of  the  mausoleum  of 
lyeyasu  at  Nikko  there  is  an  immense  rectangular  basin  carved 
out  of  a  block  of  granite.  It  is  so  perfectly  adjusted  on  its 
base  that  it  has  stood  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  with  the 
water  welling  absolutely  evenly  over  its  four  edges.  This 
monolith,  weighing  many  tons,  was  transported  from  Osaka 
to  Nikko. 

NOTE  15,  —  The  Japanese  pagoda,  according  to  Mr.  Con- 
der's  researches,  is  generally  a  five-storeyed  wooden  tower,  aver- 
aging one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  height.  "  The  plan  is  about 
twenty-four  feet  square  at  the  base,  and  each  of  the  four  upper 
storeys  recedes  somewhat  from  that  below  it.  ...  The  con- 
struction is  of  very  heavy  timbers,  framed  and  braced  upon  the 
inside  in  such  a  complicated  manner  that  there  is  barely  room 
for  the  ladderlike  staircases  which  lead  from  stage  to  stage.  A 
central  post,  about  three  feet  in  diameter  and  diminishing 
towards  the  top,  is  framed  into  the  apex  of  the  structure,  rest- 
ing upon  a  central  stone  block  at  the  bottom.  This  is  intended 
to  stiffen  the  tower  against  swaying  in  the  wind,  and  the  length 
is  so  calculated  that,  after  the  various  stages  of  the  tower  have 
shrunk  and  settled,  the  central  post  shall  just  bear  upon  its 
stone  base." 

NOTE  1 6.  — All  the  dates  given  here  are  according  to  the 
old  Japanese  calendar.  Roughly  speaking,  they  must  be  ad- 
vanced about  a  month  to  obtain  the  corresponding  Gregorian 
date.  For  example,  the  so-called  "  winter,"  from  September 
ist  to  March  3ist,  would  be,  according  to  the  Occidental 
almanac,  from  about  October  4th  to  May  4th. 

NOTE  17.  —  It  will  be  observed  that  the  cho  (thirty-six  hun- 
dred tsubo)  was  a  square  having  a  side  of  sixty  double  paces 
(i.  e.  sixty  ^n,  the  double  pace,  or  six  feet,  being  called  ken). 
The  cho  thus  became  a  unit  of  lineal  measurement,  and,  in 
accordance  with  a  principle  of  uniformity  which  will  be  at  once 
apparent,  thirty-six  cho  were  taken  as  a  measure  of  distance  and 
called  one  ri. 

NOTE  1 8. — The  loss  of  volume  caused  by  hulling  was 
counted  as  fifty  per  cent. 

NOTE  19.  —  Mention  may  be  made  of  another  system  of 
measurement  found  in  the  pages  of  early  history.  The  unit 

281 


APPENDIX 

was  the  sbiro,  a  word  signifying  "  exchange,"  and  owing  its 
employment  to  the  fact  that  rice  was  the  basis  of  all  barter. 
The  shira  signified  the  area  of  knd  that  produced  a  "sheaf," 
and  fifty  shiro  consequently  formed  a  tan.  Grants  of  land 
made  in  old  times  by  way  of  salary  and  allowances  to  officials 
were  spoken  of  in  terms  of  the  shiro.  Five  hundred  thousand 
sbiro  represented  the  area  afterwards  called  "  one  thousand  cho" 
and  gave  an  income  of  twenty  thousand  koku  (two  hundred 
thousand  sheaves)  of  unhulled  rice. 

NOTE  20.  —  Raw  silk  and  raw  cotton  were  also  among  the 
articles  levied,  but  they  seem  to  have  been  taken  instead  of  silk 
or  cotton  fabrics. 

NOTE  21.  —  The  ryo  was  the  principal  monetary  unit.  It 
was  divided  into  sixty  parts,  each  called  a  momme. 

NOTE  22.  —  The  length  of  the  bow  and  arrow  were  deter- 
mined with  reference  to  the  capacity  of  the  archer.  In  the  case 
of  the  bow,  the  unit  of  measurement  was  the  distance  between 
the  tips  of  the  thumb  and  the  little  finger  with  the  hand  fully 
stretched.  Fifteen  of  these  units  gave  the  dimensions  of  the 
bow.  Hence,  with  a  six-inch  stretch,  the  bow  would  be  seven 
feet  six  inches  long.  The  unit  for  the  arrow  was  a  hand's 
breadth,  and  from  twelve  to  fifteen  units  gave  the  length,  —  i.  c. 
from  three  feet  to  three  feet  nine  inches. 

NOTE  23.  —  Seventeen  masters  are  universally  recognised 
as  the  greatest  that  ever  forged  a  blade.  They  are  Amakuni 
of  Yamato  province,  and  his  pupil  Amaga ;  Shinsoku,  priest  of 
the  Shrine  of  Usa  in  Buzen  ;  Yasatsune  and  Sanemori,  also  of 
Buzen  ;  Munechika  of  KyOtQ,  commonly  called  Sanjo  no  Kokaji 
(the  little  smith  of  Sanjo)  ;  Miike  Denta  Mitsuyo  of  Chikugo ; 
Maikusa  Yukishige  of  Oshiu ;  GenshobS  Joshin,  a  Buddhist 
prelate  of  Hiko-san  in  Bungo;  Ki-no-Shindayu  Yukihira  of  the 
same  province  ;  Gyobu-no-Jo  Norimune  of  Bizen  ;  Kunitomo, 
Hisakuni,  Kunitsuna  and  Yoshimune  of  Kyoto  ;  Yoshihiro  of 
Yetchiu  and  Goro  Nyudo  Masamune  of  Soshiu.  The  last  of 
these  ranks  highest. 

NOTE  24.  —  The  method  by  which  this  result  was  obtained 
is  explained  in  the  chapter  on  Applied  Art. 

NOTE  25.  —  The  clay  was  first  plastered  over  the  whole 
blade,  and  then  removed  along  the  edge  by  means  of  a  bamboo 

282 


APPENDIX 

stick.  Thus  the  upper  margin  of  the  tempered  section  showed 
a  more  or  less  irregular  line,  which,  like  the  marks  of  the  forger's 
hammer,  furnished  a  means  of  identification.  The  presence  of 
this  line  of  demarkation  has  betrayed  many  persons  into  the 
erroneous  supposition  that  the  edge  of  a  Japanese  sword  is 
welded  to  the  body  of  the  blade. 

NOTE  26.  —  For  fuller  information  on  all  these  points  see 
an  admirable  essay  by  Mr.  Ed.  Gilbertson,  in  the  fourth  volume 
of  the  Japan  Society's  Transactions,  and  another  by  Professor 
Hiitterott  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  German  Asiatic  Society 
for  1885. 

NOTE  27. — First  among  the  swords  of  Japan  ranked  the 
sacred  blade  which  formed  one  of  the  Imperial  Regalia.  Then 
came  the  Hirugoza  (daily  companion),  the  Hateki  (foe-smiter), 
and  the  Shugo  (guardian)  of  the  Emperor;  followed  by  the 
"Beard-cutter"  (hige-kiri)  and  the  "Knee-severer"  (hiza- 
kiri)  of  the  Minamoto,  so  called  because,  after  cutting  off  a 
head,  one  divided  the  beard  also,  the  other  gashed  the  knees,  of 
the  decapitated  man ;  then  the  "  Little  Crow  "  (ko-garasu)  and 
the  "Out  flasher  "  (nuki-maru)  of  the  Taira,  and  then  innumer- 
able other  celebrated  blades  preserved  in  the  families  of  feudal 
nobles. 

NOTE  28.  —  Religious  influence  often  showed  itself  in  the 
legends  on  flags.  A  common  inscription  was  Namu  Amlda 
Butsu  (hear !  Oh,  Amida  Buddha)  or  Hacblman  Daibosatsu^  a 
compound  of  SbintS  with  Buddhist  tenets  ;  or  Namu  Horengekyo, 
the  formula  of  the  Nichiren  sect.  The  celebrated  soldier  Kato 
Kiyomasa  always  used  this  last  legend  for  his  pennon. 

NOTE  29.  — A  tent  was  simply  a  space  enclosed  with  strips 
of  cloth  or  silk,  on  which  was  blazoned  the  crest  of  the  com- 
mander. It  had  no  covering. 

NOTE  30.  —  These  two  last  principles  are  based  on  the  idea 
of  not  driving  the  foe  to  desperation.  There  is  reason  to  think 
that  when  the  Japanese  invested  the  Chinese  forces  in  Ping- 
yang,  in  1894,  they  acted  upon  the  advice  of  the  third-century 
strategists,  for  they  deliberately  left  a  road  of  escape  for  the 
enemy,  who  took  it. 

NOTE  31.  —  The  Japanese  military  man  is  called  indiscrim- 
inately samurai  or  bushi.  Samurai  originally  signifies  "  guard," 

283 


APPENDIX 

and  sbi  is  the  Sinico- Japanese  pronunciation  of  the  same  ideo- 
graph, which,  with  the  prefix  bu  (military),  makes  the  com- 
pound bushi^  or  military  guard.  The  terms  samurai  and  bushi 
are  used  in  these  pages  without  distinction. 

NOTE  32.  The  term  hyaku-sho^  here  translated  "working- 
man,"  means  literally  "  one  engaged  in  any  of  the  various  call- 
ings" apart  from  military  service.  In  a  later  age  a  further 
distinction  was  established  between  the  agriculturist,  the  artisan, 
and  the  trader,  and  the  word  hyaku-sho  then  came  to  carry  the 
signification  of  "  husbandman  "  only,  a  sense  which  it  possesses 
at  the  present  time. 

NOTE  33.  —  It  sometimes  happened  that  the  samurai  made 
a  -habit  of  attending  performances  given  by  shira-byoshi  (the 
geisha  of  that  era),  and  deadly  brawls  often  resulted. 

NOTE  34.  —  The  act  of  cutting  open  the  stomach  was  called 
barakiri  or  seppuku,  different  pronunciations  of  ideographs  hav- 
ing the  same  meaning. 

NOTE  35. —  Yamato  is  the  old  name  for  Japan. 

NOTE  36.  —  Little  credence  can  be  attached  to  a  statement 
often  advanced  by  Japanese  historiographers  that  the  crime  of 
high  treason  has  never  been  known  in  Japan.  There  are 
several  instances.  The  elder  brother  of  the  Empress  plotted 
against  the  life  of  the  Emperor  Suinin  (29  B.  €.-7 1  A.  D.).  Soga 
no  Umako  caused  the  Emperor  Susun  to  be  assassinated  (591 
A.  D.),  in  order  to  place  a  princess  on  the  throne.  The  Em- 
peror Kobun  was  attacked  by  his  uncle  and  driven  into  the 
mountains,  where  he  committed  suicide  (478  A.  D.).  The 
Empress  Dowager  and  her  favourite,  a  Buddhist  priest 
(Dokyo),  drove  the  Emperor  Junnin  into  exile  (764  A.  D.), 
banishing  with  him  many  princes  of  the  blood  and  killing 
others.  Mototsune,  a  representative  of  the  Fujiwara  family, 
seized  the  Emperor,  Yozei  (885  A.  D.),  and  placed  him  in  con- 
finement. In  939  A.  D.  the  Taira  chief,  Masakado,  raised  the 
standard  of  revolt  and  endeavoured  to  win  the  Throne  for 
himself.  The  Hojo  chief,  Takatoki,  sent  an  army  to  attack 
the  Palace  of  the  Emperor  Godaigo,  took  him  prisoner,  de- 
throned him,  and  sent  him  into  exile  (1331  A.  D.).  Ashikaga 
Takauji,  in  1335  A.  D.,  reduced  the  sovereign's  stronghold 
and  placed  him  in  confinement.  Such  a  record  cannot  be 

284 


APPENDIX 

reconciled  with  any  theory  of  invariably  reverential  loyalty  to 
the  person  of  the  Emperor. 

NOTE  37.  —  The  names  of  such  great  captains  as  Oda 
Nobunaga,  Hideyoshi  (the  Taiko},  Uyesugi  Kenshin,  Takeda- 
Shingen,  etc.,  are  connected  with  liaisons  of  this  description. 

NOTE  38.  —  The  Taiko  resembled  Napoleon  I.  in  his  deter- 
mined manner  of  overriding  obstacles  and  his  ruthless  indiffer- 
ence to  the  feelings  of  others.  Writing  to  his  wife  from 
Odawara,  where  he  was  besieging  the  Hojo  stronghold,  he 
said  :  "  Send  Yodo  to  me  here.  I  like  her.  You  shall  have 
me  at  your  side  when  I  return." 

NOTE  39.  —  It  is  curious  to  observe  the  difficulty  that  at- 
tended the  abolition  of  the  custom  ofjunsbi.  When  Tadayo- 
shi,  the  fourth  son  of  Tokugawa  lyeyasu,  died  in  1601,  not 
only  did  three  of  his  most  trusted  vassals  commit  suicide,  but 
a  fourth,  who  had  been  banished  to  Oshiu  in  consequence  of 
some  offence,  hastened  to  Yedo  and  killed  himself  within  the 
precincts  of  the  Temple  Zojo-ji.  In  the  same  year  Hide- 
yasu,  second  son  of  lyeyasu,  died.  Two  of  his  attendants  im- 
mediately committed  suicide,  and  his  chief  factor  was  about  to 
follow  their  example  when  peremptory  vetoes  arrived  from 
Hidetada,  the  reigning  Viceregent,  and  from  lyeyasu  himself. 
In  his  letter  forbidding  the  act,  lyeyasu  declared  that  should  the 
practice  be  resorted  to  by  any  feudatory's  vassals  thereafter,  the 
fief  would  be  confiscated,  his  view  being  that  true  loyalty  re- 
quired, not  sacrifice  of  life,  but  transfer  of  services  to  the 
deceased  lord's  successor.  Nevertheless,  when  Kunimatsu, 
the  eight-year-old  son  of  Toyotomi  Hideyoshi,  was  put  to  death 
in  1615,  Ms  tutor,  Tanaka  Rokuyemon,  committed  suicide; 
and  when  the  second  Tokugawa  Skogun,  Hidetada,  died  in 
1632,  although,  as  has  been  said,  he  had  himself  interdicted  the 
unsbiy  his  squire,  Morikawa  Shigetoshi,  followed  him  to  the 
other  world.  So,  on  the  demise  of  Date  Masamune  in  1636, 
several  of  his  vassals  committed  suicide ;  and  on  the  death  of 
the  third  Tokugawa  Shogun^  lyemitsu,  in  1651,  five  men  and  one 
woman  killed  themselves,  and  four  other  men,  attendants  of 
the  suicides,  took  the  same  step.  At  length,  in  1663,  the 
fourth  Sbogun,  lyetsuna,  decreed  that  if  the  junsbi  were  prac- 
tised in  any  fief,  the  latter's  revenues  should  be  confiscated ; 

285 


APPENDIX 

and  six  years  later,  when,  on  the  death  of  Matsudaira  Tadamasa 
of  Utsunomiya,  one  of  his  vassals  adhered  to  the  old  custom, 
the  Yedo  administration  reduced  the  estates  of  the  fief  by 
twenty  thousand  koku,  executed  the  two  sons  of  Sugiura  Mat- 
subei,  who  had  committed  suicide,  and  banished  his  grandson. 
Not  until  the  exaction  of  these  terrible  penalties  did  the  custom 
receive  its  death-blow. 

NOTE  40.  —  Mr.  J.  Conder  in  his  admirable  work,  "Land- 
scape Gardening  in  Japan." 

NOTE  41.  —  Conder's  "Landscape  Gardening  in  Japan." 


286 


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